The Mystery of the Dragons and the Bible

Dragons are one of the singular most important part of growing up with stories, at least here in America. They are the ultimate bad guys, the most powerful, evil foes ever dreamed up by the old storytellers. And they are extremely enjoyable to color and draw, as I have for this article. Now, everyone knows that dragons aren't real and never really lived, right? Or did they? Do they still? Is it a matter of the definition of dragon? Who isn't aware of the famous Komodo Dragon? But that is actually a lizard, not a dragon, as I have drawn here which has discovered the hunter sneaking under his belly but he was a wee bit too noisy. I call it "Uh-oh." I worked on this one off and on for two years. For those who played the video game Skyrim, you might recognize this dragon as Parthunax, the old wise dragon. This is my rendering of him. I literally walked under his belly in the game and he looked down and I took the picture. It's a rather unique perspective I have never seen in dragon art before, so that calls for a celebration and a drawing! Lol!

Dr. Muller a physicist from UC Berkeley, California noted how dinosaurs came to be, at least in our own stories, and how they acquired their powers. "Ancient humans found dragon bones, giant reptile skeletons, lying out in the open, but they were unlike the bones of any lizard or snake or amphibians that they knew. Their pelvic bones were very different; they closely resembled those of birds. The obvious conclusion: that meant these giant reptiles could fly! Moreover, their bones were made of stone! Impervious to fire! Putting two and two together, they knew that these animals must be the source of the fire that came down from the sky, setting forests on fire. They were fire-breathing. It all made sense. And the legends of dragons were born from this early attempt at scientific logic."[1] As Carl Jung himself noted, "The dragon in itself is a monstrum - a symbol combining the chthonic [earthly, ground] principle of the serpent and the aerial principle of the bird."[2]

Now interestingly, far back into antiquity, the theme of "The fight of God and dragon," was well known, spread far and wide, and had to do with renewing the new order because the old order has perished, or ought to.[3] Gaster notes this involved the Canaanites, Sumerians, Akkadians, Indians, Greeks, Iranians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Teutons, and the ancient Hebrews of our Bible.[4] The Hebrews assimilated the already existing mythology of the Canaanites in order to, as Gaster describes it, "attempt to recapture the allegiance of the returning and assimilated Jewish exiles by representing their ancestral religion in terms of the 'heathen' mythologies..."[5]

Mercea Eliade demonstrated that many historical situations were anciently mythologized, and symbologized, distorting what actually happened, and in essence, God fighting the dragon, earthly heroes fighting dragons, etc., are not ever meant as historical realities or situations which we might be able to find actual remaining evidences of in the world.[6]

Both gods and humans have been given the propensity of fighting against dragons, but Hercules is probably the youngest to ever do so. The son of Zeus (himself a dragon fighter) had two serpents sent to kill him from the goddess who didn't much care for him, and as a mere baby had to struggle with and strangle them.[7] Tough kid, stay on his good side, and hopefully a football coach got hold of him early on.

The dragon has also been associated with the serpent, especially in the Bible, and that is what we are all interested in here in the West. Yes, the story is all over the ancient world, but what about the Bible's view? Lets take a look.

The two creatures which are associated with dragons/serpents in the Bible are Leviathan, and Tannin. Rahab also gets into the act, as we are told - "Both Leviathan and Rahab belong to the realm of the dragon..."[8] And regardless of the name or description, the dragons in the Bible were inherited from the myths of the other nations which were Israel's neighbors. There is truly no more original in the Bible in this regard than there is of their deity, Jahweh being a storm god, a rather typical Near Eastern one.[9]

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy showed that a return to God is actually symbolized by the Ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail, the beginning and end, a good representation of the Godhead actually.[10] And who is not aware that Jesus thought serpents were especially wise as he presented "be wise as serpents harmless as doves"?

The snake in the Garden of Eden was the eye opener of Adam and Eve and is perhaps based on the ancient black serpent Dangbe, the snake who is said to have opened the eyes of the first man and woman, who was considered extremely wise who was considered as "wisdom incarnate."[11] This snake was a python and "is considered as embodying a superhuman being."[12] Adam and Eve were born blind and therefore, to have the eyes opened meant "to be enlightened, to have a good deal of knowledge, to be educated, to be civilized."[13] But this becomes cosmogonic as it was the eyes of the entire universe this snake opened![14] This is reminiscent of Okeanus, the all encompassing serpent around the world as the universal ocean of live giving fluid of the Greek tradition.[15] Okeanus was the primal ψυχη (Psyche) "the primal procreative element in any body which appeared in the form of a serpent."[16] Onians notes the striking similarity with the Babylonian earth being encircled by the male element, Apsu, a serpent which was identified with water. Strikingly, "the river Euphrates, [was] thought of as a serpent, was, 'the soul of the land."[17]

We are at once reminded of the famous ancient Gilgamesh Epic where Gilgamesh ties stones to his feet and dives down into the ocean for the plant of immortality (Kaut des Lebens), and because the waters were so cold, once he had the plant and resurfaced, he found a resting spot and closed his eyes, only a snake smelled the plant, (Eine Schlange roch den Duft des Kraut) and came and ate it (stieg empor und nahm das Kraut fort) and slithered off into the Euphrates. Wilhelm Printz, who recounts many different stories and angles of this says "Aus vorstehenden Berichten ergibt sich folgendes gemeinsames Erzahlungsmotiv: der Held kehrt aus merchenhafter Ferne Wassers nieder um zu baden. Eine Schlange raubt den Talisman.")[18] - Following the prominant stories, the common motive is that the hero returns from a fantastic distance with a talisman. He lays it down at the shore of some water in order to bath. A snake steals the talisman. The Euphrates then becomes a "river of life."

So, the snake is responsible in some stories of taking away the chance of eternal life for man, and in other stories is responsible for enlightening mankind. There are some juicy contradictory themes within the mythology involving snakes. Margaret Barker shows how Psalm 74 "evokes a picture of Creation as God's victory over 'dragons' and 'Leviathan' in the waters, followed by his ordering of the Earth, the heavenly bodies, and the seasons... the Bible contains many references to God's ordering of the cosmic elements by imposing limits on them and commanding them to keep their place."[19] Coomaraswamy again notes that the serpent of the head is affixed by the solar hero as has been done for ages and ages, which secures the earth as "the Messiah transfixes the dragon."[20]

Jeffrey Burton Russell shows that chaos is represented with snakes, serpents and dragons in many ancient cultures. In fact, "The identification of the Devil with the serpent ties him again to these [night, death, menstruation, fertility] and to the monster that holds order and life captive and must be slain so that they may be released."[21] Harry Gaylord describes how the Slavonic texts of 3 Baruch have less Christian interpolation than the Greek text, which shows how a certain Samael plants the vine in paradise, but in the Slavonic, a longer account, it is Satanael who does so. It is this Satanael who refuses to bow down and worship Adam saying "I refuse to worship dirt and mud." Satanael, of course, got into serious trouble, and went down to find the serpent, and made the serpent swallow him! It is, to say the least, a quite unusual way to gain control of the serpent.[22] Valliant identifies this Satanael with the devil - "Le diable garde les lieux inferieurs, il s'etait fait Satan quand il avait fui du ciel , car son nom etait Satanael" - The devil keeps the lower places, he was made Satan when he had fled from heaven, for his name was Satanael.[23] Gaylord shows how the majority of scholars date 3 Baruch to the 2nd century of the Christian era.[24] R. H. Charles also dated the book to the 2nd century A. D. and notes (as did Gaylord) that the "Jewish original has been worked over by a Christian redactor..."[25] Leo Jung has shown on the other hand that "Satan, or the 'Angel of death' or 'Samael' or 'Ashmodei' are not the representatives of evil powers. They all appear as messengers of God."[26] He further shows a source which has Satan as the greatest of all the angels, upon the creation of Adam, and God telling the angels to worship him, say "Lord of the Universe! Thou hast created us from the splendor of the Shekhinah and Thou sayest that we should bow down before him whom thou hast created from the dust of the ground?"[27] Interesting that the angels were made from the splendor of the Shekhinah, who is the female Bride of God, the Heavenly Mother and Wisdom in some traditions![28] Ironically, as Margaret Barker has shown, "water is Wisdom... the older religion of Israel seems to have recognized that Wisdom, i.e., the Spirit, transformed human beings and made them like God. Paul said the same thing in Romans 8:14-17: If the Spirit of God dwells in you, you are sons of God. The serpent in Eden was right; knowledge, that is, Wisdom did make human beings god-like."[29]

Jeffrey Burton Russell has demonstrated that it was in Early Christianity that the Devil became the cosmic opposition to God. What God creates, the Devil destroy, the dragon is evil.[30] In the New Testament the dragon is specifically tied to the devil at Revelation 12.

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down-that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Jeffrey Burton Russell has given an interesting description here that is worth noting. "Associated with Antichrist in Revelation are the beasts and the dragon (Rev. 11-19) who again have mingled and ambiguous characteristics. The dragon is to be identified as the Devil himself, and the beasts are his servants. The beast from the sea is generally agreed to be the power of Rome, although it has mythological resonances going back to Leviathan and Tiamat. The Antichrist and the two beasts are best understood as helpers of the Devil in his last struggle against Christ at the end of the world. Their close association with the Devil, given the ambiguity of the passages, permitted an assimilation of their characteristics into the image of the Devil himself. And this is proper. Together they are the old aeon, the world, the force and evil that blocks and obstructs the Kingdom of God."[31] This was the ancient archetype Mercea Eliade was commenting on, the forming of a new age by combating the old and destroying it.[32] Frank Moore Cross, Jr., described how the old age was done away with through the battling of opposing pairs of either forces or deities personified as forces, "the theogonic divine pairs are often binary opposites; Heaven and Earth, Apsu and Tiamat, (the sweet waters, and the salty abyss), Ansar and Kisar (the opposing horizons of heaven and earth), Primeval darkness, inertness, and nothingness are fought against in favor of order, creation, etc.[33] The iconographic nature of these kinds of battles of gods and serpents are discussed in the current scholarly literature showing vast and wide attestation.[34]

"Yam's associates of monstrous appearance... represent the maritime chaos which once had endangered the earth but was then overwhelmed by the creator-god and given as food to wild beasts."[35] The pattern of the cosmogonic myth could not be more evident. Moreover, one remembers that in biblical lore the defeat of Sea or the dragon is properly placed in time, at creation, or, to say the same thing, in the new creation. In the banquet of the end-time, the faithful feast on the flesh of Leviathan."[36] In the creation myth the Enuma Elish, "in which the creator god fashions the cosmos from the slain corpse of a sea monster (cf. Tiamat) by this reading Israel was saying that the great sea monsters were merely a part of the created order."[37] It is quite certain that "Leviathan/Tannin in this passage [Isa 27:1] (along with the serpent of Genesis 3 and the fourth beast of Daniel 7) supplied much of the background for the great dragon of Revelation 12-13 in the New Testament."[38] As a basis for the creation cosmogony of Genesis, Tiamat was associated in the Hebrew mind with the Hebrew Tehom originally "the personified primeval ocean that was defeated by Marduk."[39] The dividing of the waters above from those of below were a Genesis reflection of the great battle of the god against the Okeanus, the great serpent circling the earth. In fact, WIlliam F. Albright long ago demonstrated how the Genesis Tohu wabohu, the earth being "empty and void," (desolate) were based on combining Bohu and tehom, and these words represented "chaos as void in the early Hellenistic sense, and chaos as a watery deep, or tehom, in the Mesopotamian sense."[40]

There really is an enormous amount to say on this that I shall pick up yet again another time. I havent discussed Jung's alchemical ideas of the dragon and the Hermetic influence yet. There is a lot there. There is vastly more from the Chinese end of things also.The overall idea is that the myths are not meant to be taken concretely, literal, historical. Truth can be had without having to have actually happened in time. Just grabbing a quick Joseph Campbell book off the shelf, I find the anguipede form of a combined iconography dealing with Jehovah as a serpent footed deity is understood, showing an interesting syncretism. We have Zeus Melchios as well. (Campbell, Mythic Image, pp. 294-295ff) Somewhere, I swear I read it in Coomaraswamy, but I can't find it now, the dragon represents our own inner psychology. Like Jesus said in Luke of the Kingdom of God, it is within us. So are the dragons. Coomaraswamy shows how the eastern view says the end of the world is also within us. The myths are dealing with our own selves, our psychology, our hang ups, and needs. They aren't about other people, they are about us. The myths are telling us our own psychological warfare with our inner demons so to speak. So, with that, let me say look to the left here and see how cute and cuddly the inner dragon can be. Lol!

Endnotes

1. Richard Muller, "Can a Dragon Possibly Exist?" https://www.quora.com/Can-a-dragon-possibly-exist​

2. Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Princeton University Press, 8th printing, revised, 1993: 292.

3. Theodor H. Gaster, Thespis, Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East, New and Revised Edition, Gordian Press, 1975: 137.

4. Gaster, Thespis, p. 138.

5. Gaster, Thespis, p. 142.

6. Mercea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, Princeton University Press, 2nd paperback ed., 1974: 37-45.

7. Harry Thurston Peck, editor, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, Cooper Square Publishers, 1963: 790.

8. Karel Van Der Toorn, Bob Becking, Peter W. Van Der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd extensively revised edition, Brill/William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999: 512. Hereafter cited as DDD.

9. DDD, p. 512.

10. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Thew Door in the Sky, Coomaraswamy on Myth and Meaning, Princeton University Press, 1997: 225.

11. Christian Merlo, Pierre Vidaud, "The Black Serpent Who Opened the Eyes of Man," in Diogenes, 55(Fall 1966): 64.

12. "The Black Serpent," p. 65.

13. "The Black Serpent," p. 72-73.

14. "The Black Serpent," p. 73.

15. R. B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought, about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate, Cambridge University Press, first paperback, 1988: 248-249.

16. Onians, Origin of European Thought, p. 249.

17. Onians, p. 249, note 5.

18. Wilhelm Printz, "Gilgamesh und Alesander," in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandishcen Gesellschaft, 85(1931): 196, 198.

19. Margaret Barker, "The Cosmic Covenant," The Ecologist, (2000), by Father Robert Murray, p. 5.

20. Coomaraswamy, The Door in the Sky, p. 208.

21. Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Devil, Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, Cornell University Press, first paperback, 1987: 68.

22. Harry E. Gaylord, "How Satanael lost his "-el" Journal of Jewish Studies, (1987): 306-307.

23. Gaylord, "How Satanael Lost his "-el", p. 308.

24. Harry E. Gaylord, "3 (Greek Apocalypse of) BARUCH," in J. H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols, Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1983, 1: 655-656, citing M. R. James, L. Ginsberg, H. M. Hughes, J. C. Picard, etc.

25. R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols., Oxford, Clarendon Press, reprint, 1979, 2:527.

26. Leo Jung, "Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian, and Mohommedan Literature," in Jewish Quarterly Review, 16(1925-1926: 45.

27. Leo Jung, "Fallen Angels," p. 73.

28. Eugene Seaich, A Great Mystery: The Secret of the Jerusalem Temple: The Embracing Cherubim and the At-One-Ment with the Divine, Gorgias Press, 2008: 3. Also see Index under "Shekhinah" for much more along these lines. Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd edition, Wayne State University Press, 1990: 103 shows the Shekhinah was considered by some as the Holy Spirit.

29. Margaret Barker, On Earth as it is in Heaven, Temple Symbolism in the New Testament, T&T Clark, 1995: 31.

30. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan, The Early Christian Tradition, Cornell University Press, first paperback, 1987: 94.

31. Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Devil, Perceptions of Evil From Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, pp. 243-244.

32. Mercea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, pp. 37-42.

33. Frank Moore Cross, Jr., "The 'Olden Gods' in Ancient Myths, in Magnolia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God, p. 329-330.

34. DDD, p. 512-513.

35. DDD, p. 513.

36. Frank Moore Cross, Jr., p. 334.

37. DDD, p. 835.

38. DDD, p. 836.

39. DDD, p. 867.

40. William F. Albright, "Contributions to Biblical Archaeology and Philology," in Journal of BIblical Literature, 43: 3/4(1924): 366.