Taming the Beast

A Reception History of Behemoth and Leviathan

Mark R. Sneed

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110580334
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient Religion

Leviathan, a manifestation of one of the oldest monsters in recorded history (3rd millennium BCE), and its sidekick, Behemoth, have been the object of centuries of suppression throughout the millennia. Originally cosmic, terrifying creatures who represented disorder and chaos, they have been converted into the more palatable crocodile and hippo by biblical scholars today.

However, among the earliest Jews (and Muslims) and possibly Christians, these creatures occupied a significant place in creation and redemption history. Before that, they formed part of a backstory that connects the Bible with the wider ancient Near East. When examining the reception history of these fascinating beasts, several questions emerge.

Why are Jewish children today familiar with these creatures, while Christian children know next to nothing about them? Why do many modern biblical scholars follow suit and view them as minor players in the grand scheme of things? Conversely, why has popular culture eagerly embraced them, assimilating the words as symbols for the enormous? More unexpectedly, why have fundamentalist Christians touted them as evidence for the cohabitation of dinosaurs and humans?

1 Introduction

To indicate the modern cultural significance of both Behemoth and Leviathan, the two beasts in the second divine speech in Job¹, the following are my own, recent, personal encounters with them. On December 18, 2019, in Peter Travers’s review (Rolling Stone) of the last Star Wars movie in the series, “The Rise of Skywalker,” he refers to the series, started by George Lucas, as a “cultural Behemoth.” On Dec 23, 2019, the gameshow “Jeopardy” had a category of “Big Words,” wherein one response question was “What is Behemoth?” to “A grass-eating beast in the book of Job.” Also on Dec 27, 2019, one of the question responses on “Jeopardy” was the “internet Behemoth” Amazon. On Dec 24, 2019, my Windows startup photo featured the California Redwood trees with the caption “these Behemoths.” As for Leviathan, earlier in August 2019, I was visiting Poland for a conference and near the town of Lublin I twice saw grocery stores called “Lewiatan,” a huge chain in Poland. More recently, in the second series of Disney’s “Mandalorian,” first episode, premiering Oct 28, 2020, a krayt (sand) dragon is featured that eats bovine creatures called banthas. The dragon is eventually called a Leviathan, and after it is killed, its meat is eaten as a delicacy.

These creatures have also engaged the curiosity of biblical scholars. Most modern scholars view them as natural animals, Behemoth as the hippopotamus and Leviathan as the crocodile. In 2011, David Clines (1185) noted, “Most scholars today … have no doubt that Behemoth and Leviathan are real creatures, though the descriptions are of course literary and not necessarily realistic, perhaps not entirely accurate.” In 2012, Michael Fox (261, 261, n. 2) notes, “Almost all commentators identify Bememoth, correctly, as the hippopotamus. … This is the consensus.” Concerning Leviathan Fox says (2012, 264) it “is usually identified with the crocodile or, less often with the dragon of Ugaritic and Hebrew mythology. In my view, the Leviathan in the Theophany of Job is based on the whale, perhaps conflated with the closely related dolphin.” And, in the mid-70’s of last century, French Egyptologist, biblical scholar, and Dominican priest, Bernard Couroyer, (1975, 418 – 23) refers to the scholarly consensus of the identification of Behemoth and Leviathan as the hippopotamus and crocodile, respectively, which goes back to 1663, the publication of the biblical animal encyclopedia, Hierozoicon, by Huegonot and antiquarian, Samuel Bochart. However, it should be noted that there is a strong minority of scholars that sees these beasts as mythological monsters.

But whatever the true natue of the beasts, scholars have debated their symbolic and theological significance. The beasts are often seen as symbolyzing God’s power and sovereignty over against Job’s impotence because he cannot restrain or catch them. Thus, Job has no right to challenge God concerning his justice in running the world. And/or they are seen as representing disorder, chaos or even evil, and, it is assumed God, as creator of these beings, has a place in his divine economy for them. The beasts then are agents of theodicy.

The consensus view of biblical scholarship has even permeated popular culture. For example, a recent Jewish coloring book depicts Behemoth as a hippopotamus and a tannin (‏תַּנִּין‏‎‎ or sea dragon, another name for Leviathan) as a crocodile (Burstein 1986, 6, 26). This is true for other languages as well. For example, in Romani, “Behemoth” refers to the hippopotamus. And the consensus view has even reached elite culture outside biblical studies. Carl Jung, famous student of Sigmund Freud, refers (1969, 21) to Leviathan as a crocodile that represents God’s animal nature.²

However, in popular culture these beasts are not usually utilized like this as descriptors for natural aninmals but as symbols for the very large, “things massive and incomparable” (see Thomas forthcoming). There have been several B-movies made about the beasts. “The Giant Behemoth” (1959) involves the resurrection of a dinosaur, perhaps a Paleosaurus, due to radioactive contamination in the sea, or “Behemoth” (2011), which portrays a giant underground creature that is wrapped around the world. In “Leviathan” (1989) one finds the creature is a huge water monster, resembling the Kraken in “Clash of the Titans” (2010) (see Sonneveld 2017, 281). They even have influenced children’s animation films. In “Monsters University,” the large, blue, furry protagonist, “Sulley,” is called a Behemoth. And the popular tv show, “American Idol,” was called “Fox’s Behemoth” (Greenspoon).

For reasons that will soon become apparent, food is often described by invoking these beasts. A few years back in the United States, there was concern about a large lobster that might have been eaten: “Bubba the Leviathan Lobster to Live On” in the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium. The gastronomical metaphors continue with “Behemoth hamburger [weighing in at 1 pound] puts up a fight at California’s Hazel Restaurant” (Greenspoon 2006). Starbucks has been referred to as the “US coffee Behemoth” (Greenspoon). Similarly, the bookstore, Borders, was once described as “Bordering on the Behemoth” (Greenspoon), though, unfortunately, it has recently gone out of business. Of course, Walmart has been described as “Behemoth” (Greenspoon).

So, why is there this difference between popular culture and biblical scholarship? And which view is correct? Surely biblical scholarship should be given the benefit of a doubt, and we should rely on their expertise, right? Or is it possible that biblical scholars are biased themselves and do not come to the texts about these beasts from an objective standpoint?

Another interesting factor is that as pervasive as the beasts’ place is in popular culture today, they form relatively little part in current Christian theology. Exceptions are fundamentalist creation scientists, who see the beasts in the second divine speech as dinosaurs and the best biblical evidence for human cohabitation with dinosaurs. Also, many Jews value the beasts, along with a third one, a giant griffin or bird-like creature called Ziz, as the source of food for the redeemed in the eschaton. There are coloring books that depict these creatures, such as The Ziz and the Hanukkah Miracle (Jules 2006), in which the huge bird helps the Maccabees find oil for the Temple menorah.

For Protestant Christians today, the beasts only emerge as a topic of discussion usually during a Sunday School class on the book of Job. Otherwise, they form no actual part of the tradition and have little if any relevance. Among Catholics, they are not insignificant, however. Leviathan is portrayed as a motif in iconography in older cathedrals. Just a few centuries ago, medieval Christians would constantly see iconography that depicted Leviathan as the jaws of hell or Hellmouth, revealing its terrifying jaws with large teeth swallowing the damned. Connected with this, the motif of Harrowing of Hell or Descent into Limbo usually involved the depiction of Leviathan, an event celebrated on Holy Saturday during Easter week. The Harrowing of Hell depicts the time between Christ’s death and his resurrection, when he visited the poor spirits in prison in Hades, a la 1 Pet 4:6. This event is in fact part of the Apostle’s Creed, and, thus, one could argue should be no insignificant doctrine for the church, Catholic or Protestant. However, the beasts as a couple form no great theological significance for Catholics today. At least one can say that their significance has declined.

2 The Need for a Reception Historical Approach

The following questions reveal the need for a particular theoretical perspective in order to better understand the dissonance created by the above realities. So, are these beasts merely the hippopotamus and crocodile or mythological creatures or even monsters? Is biblical scholarship in the best position to answer this question? Why have these creatures become so dominant in popular culture but not in the churches and synagogues? Why are Jews and Catholics more familiar with these creatures religiously than Protestants? Why were the beasts more important in earlier periods of the church and synagogue but not now? Why did the names “Behemoth” and “Leviathan,” Hebrew words, become assimilated into English and other Indo-European languages? Why do peripheral groups (e. g., creation scientists, certain Jewish groups) view them, as in popular culture, as huge creatures, whether mythological or dinosaurs, whereas mainline groups view them usually as natural animals? And, relatedly, what do these beasts contribute to the divine speeches and the book of Job as a whole. And should they form a greater role in Old Testament and Jewish theology (and Islamic theology)? In other words, how central were these beasts for the Israelites and, if so, does this imply that they should be central for Christians and Jews (and Muslims) today? Are they simply a relic of the past, needing to be forgotten? Are mythological monsters, if that is what they are, passé and embarrassing for our modern or postmodern, Western world, which has become increasingly secular and rationalized over the last centuries? Should they be demythologized today, much like the devil, as a quaint belief of the past, representing merely our more primitive natures?

The only way to answer these questions is to trace how these beasts have been generally interpreted throughout the ages. This will require an examination of not only the nature of the beasts in the Joban divine speeches but also in other places in the Hebrew Bible where Leviathan (and its other nomenclatures) appears. But it also requires that Leviathan’s pre-history be explored, a history that goes back very far, perhaps even the 4^th millennium. I will then trace the significance of Behemoth and Leviathan forward from early Judaism and Christianity (and Islam), through Medieval, Renaissance, Reformation, the Enlightenment, Modern, up to our own time in the 21^st century, but in tems of nodes (defined later). Obviously, we cannot be exhaustive, for there is far too much to treat. Instead, I will be selective and focus on examples that have repeatedly been invoked by scholars but also will include more idiosyncratic examples, if they are illuminative in ways the typical examples are not.

2.1 Methodology: Reception History

Reception history is a relatively new type of criticism for biblical studies, and, it has come with a bang, creating a crisis of identity within the field (Harding 2015, 32). It has arisen in reaction to the many failures, as well as successes, of traditional biblical criticism, especially in its methodology par excellence, the historical-critical method. Here is a common sentiment by Jonathan Morgan (2015, 61), Lecturer in Religion and History at the University of Chester:

I have never found biblical studies’ traditional historical-critical method particularly attractive, nor the widespread, conservative appeals to and arguments from its all-sufficiency even remotely satisfying. Furthermore, I, like many others, feel that the hour is coming, and is now here, when frank discussion concerning its conceptual and practical weaknesses must bring an end to its persistent yet increasingly hollow and damaging hegemony.

It is this last notion, its hegemony, which has irked most scholars open to reception history as a type of criticism within biblical studies. Morgan (2015, 69) again notes, “there is a significant tendency in certain quarters to see historical criticism as the historical approach within biblical studies: that is, the approach that makes proper use of the scholarly apparatus of the discipline of history.” What biblical scholars fail to consider is that historical criticism, for all its powers of illumination, uses “Reformation-inspired categories of time” (Crossley 2015, 48). In fact, the terminology we use to distinguish these two practices is problematic: “We no longer need to make the distinction between (for instance) ‘historical criticism’ and ‘reception history’ because, not only is everything reception in some form, but everything is, obviously, history” (Crossley 2015, 47 – 48). Similarly, James Harding (2015, 35) puts it this way, “But can a distinction between first and second stages in interpretation, that is, between the study of the texts in their original historical contexts and their subsequent history of reception actually be maintained? And why should the former be essentialized as the point of coherence for the discipline?” He (35) goes even further, “Biblical scholarship is itself part of the reception history of the biblical texts.” This will be painfully obvious as the interpretation of the beasts is traced throughout history. To press this even further, to question even the distinction between a text and its reception, Harding notes, “As is now abundantly clear to anyone who has studied the ‘biblical’ manuscripts from Qumran, the biblical ‘text’ contains the beginnings of the history of its own reception. Text and reception are inseparable.”³ This resonates with Foucault’s (1972, 141 – 48) claim that there is no such thing as an original text, because it is always a reconfiguration of previous texts. Crossley (2015, 59), in fact, suggests that we should drop the two terms altogether and see both practices as making up what we call biblical studies, if we do not want biblical studies to remain, as it is, a subfield of both religious studies and theology, when it could be so much more!

Another related threat has also precipitated the need for a subfield like reception history. “With people from other fields exploring our own specialism (and teaching the subject), biblical studies needs to find a way to defend itself and maintain its foothold if it wishes to remain relevant to—and financially viable within—the academic community” (England/Lyons 2018, 4). Reception historians in biblical studies, thus, are attempting to offer a sophisticated apology for the value of biblical studies, which historical criticism cannot sufficiently do. In responding to critics, like Jacques Berlinerblau, who want to turn to aesthetics to interpret the Bible more secularly, Samuel Tongue (2018, 118) remarks, “[E]ven by turning to the aesthetic, the deeper doxic commitment, shared by secular and religious interpreter alike, is that these texts exert an authority, however constituted or imagined, that demands a response.” Crossley (2015, 47...