Mythical Creatures and Divine Entities
The belief in divine beings and mythical creatures is a universal phenomenon which has been attested to in every culture and time period. The conviction of the existence of gods, demigods, spirits, and angels has long affected the way people think, act, and perceive the world; hence, the proper interpretation of various cultural groups’ beliefs in these beings and creatures demands the attention of the scholarly community. My particular interest is in the role that legendary creatures function as symbols within religious communities. Authors of religious texts often make substantial use of legendary creatures as religious symbols, and their usage of these creatures may either reflect their assent or disagreement with the cultural normative beliefs that their audiences have about these creatures. Thus, the mythological beliefs of a given religious group need to be examined in order to better understand the religious claims made by these sorts of texts. More specifically, legendary creatures are discussed in the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Jewish literature, and the New Testament. It follows then that the careful study of the various uses and significance of these sacred (or profane) creatures plays an invaluable role for enabling religious scholars to better understand these ancient texts and other texts of similar nature.
The Embodiment of Chaos in Ancient Israelite Religious Thought
In particular, my interests lie in the role that mythical creatures play in ancient Israelite religion. A number of references are made to various mythical creatures in the Hebrew Bible, including the Nephilim, the Seraphim, Azazel, Behemoth, Rahab, and Leviathan, etc. In particular, extensive scholarship concerning Rahab and Leviathan has demonstrated that ancient Israelites understood these figures to be mythical dragons embodying (or representing) chaos. Thus, references to these monsters in the biblical (and extra-biblical) texts would, presumably, invoke ancient Israelite familiarity with traditions regarding them. Some examples of these texts include: the apocalyptic image of the monster Leviathan in Isaiah 27:1 which maintains that God will have a final and permanent victorious confrontation with the chaotic dragon Leviathan (66-68); the notion in Psalms 74:12-17, 89:10-15 that God defeated a chaos monster (God’s Conflict 18-28); the Book of Job which uses pre-creation imagery to represent God’s primordial battle with chaos in 3:10 (Bergant 38-39) and Job 40:15-34 which depicts Leviathan and Behemoth as being subdued by God (God’s Conflict 86-87); and Daniel 7’s apocalyptic visions which invokes imagery of four beasts emerging from the sea which is, according to Longman and Reid, symbolically used to represent the cosmic dimension of the struggle between Israel and its enemies (63-69). Clearly, each of these books presumes a prior familiarity with this tradition of a dragon(s) embodying chaos.
Further research must be undertaken in order to deepen our understanding of the role that these monsters (Rahab and Leviathan) and other legendary creatures play in the biblical authors’ theologies and, thus, advance our understanding of the particular texts in question. Authors, such as H. Gunkel and, more recently, John Day, have only begun to demonstrate the benefits of thorough research into the background of these legendary creatures; namely, this research begins to open up a new dimension to the religious texts in question, and further demonstrates the effects of intercultural communication upon ancient Israel. Regarding the ladder, John Day, for example, argues that the figure Leviathan is borrowed from earlier Canaanite mythology, traces of which can be found in the Ugaritic texts (“Leviathan” 295). Furthermore, Lang sees the motif of a divine warrior overcoming chaos in Akkadian mythology (57-62). Others, including Newsom and Schreiner, uphold the importance of both the Ugaritic and Akkadian texts to mark the more generally widespread acceptance of this motif throughout the Ancient Near East (594).
The Question which Inspires me to Study at the Graduate Level
Biblical scholars must consider the following: “What sort of creatures and beings do the biblical (and extra-biblical) authors presume exist when they make use of the symbol of (a) chaos monster(s) or other legendary creatures in religious teachings or messages?” Answering this question will allow biblical scholars to better understand these texts, their cultural backgrounds, and how they may be understood and interpreted by the contemporary religious communities who uphold these texts as sacred scripture today. In particular, these texts are important for many present-day religious groups due to their high regard of the Hebrew Bible as a scriptural authority, source for self-understanding, and personal meaning. Furthermore, this task of accurately comprehending these religious authors’ beliefs in legendary creatures is particularly important in a multicultural society which promotes the growth and flourishing of the rich traditions of all religious communities. Hence, it is the aforementioned question and its continuing relevance for the modern world that draws my attention to academia. Thus, I wish to continue studying at the graduate level in order to better understand and address this question.
How I Will Pursue a Response to This Question
Currently, I am a graduate student at the University of Toronto pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Religion. The University of Toronto is an excellent place for me to pursue this question for several reasons. At this institution, I not only have access to the resources offered by the Department and Centre for the Study of Religion, but I also have access to the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Toronto School of Theology. Each of these departments have faculty that specialize in Ancient Israelite and Jewish religion. Moreover, there is a plethora of library materials concerning this subject readily available and easily accessible. Furthermore, the university offers a very wide range of languages, and I am able to enhance my studies in both primary languages (Biblical Hebrew, Koine Greek, etc.) and also in modern languages (French, German, etc.).
In addition, there are many ancient Israelite religion courses offered at the University of Toronto, so I am able to focus all of my coursework in this specific area. Thus, I can continue to thoroughly research my interests throughout the duration of each of my courses and continually develop my scholarship skills through the guidance of key figures in the field of ancient Israelite religion such as Dr. Hindy Najman, Dr. Judith Newman, and Dr. Sarianna Metso. Furthermore, my supervisor – Dr. Glen Taylor – who has done research and published works overlapping with my own interests (the existence of sun worship in ancient Israel) will be able to help direct me towards the most effective resources for pursuing my research interests.
Works Cited
Bergant, Dianne. Job, Ecclesiastes. Eds. Carroll Stuhlmueller, and Martin McNamara. Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1982.
Day, John. God’s conflict with the dragon and the sea: Echoes of a Canaanite myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Day, John. “Leviathan.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary. vol. 4. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1st edition 1992. 295.
Lang, Bernhard. The Hebrew God: Portrait of an Ancient Deity. London, Great Britain: Yale University Press, 2002.
Longman III, Tremper, and Daniel G. Reid. God is a Warrior. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995.
Newsom, C.A., and S.E. Schreiner. “Book of Job.” Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. vol. 1. Ed. John H. Hayes. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1st edition 1999. 587-599.
Niditch, Susan. Ancient Israelite Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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2 comments:
Hi Andrew,
Your proposal was extremely well written. I greatly enjoyed all of the background information you provided, especially since I personally find the topic of mythical creatures fascinating. You provided a substantial amount of information regarding your topic and your specific subject of interest. I think it was very effective to mention some of the occurrences of mythical imagery in the primary sources, as well using secondary sources to trace scholarly views regarding the origins and significance of this imagery.
You also mention the relevance of this topic and of your specific question to today, which is extremely important in my view. I especially appreciate the statement regarding multicultural society and the promotion of a rich diversity of religious communities, since I feel this is something all scholars should keep in mind.
Finally, you mention the resources and professors that you will have access to at the University of Toronto. This section is informative and highlights all of the tools at your disposal, but does not quite mention how you will go about answering your specific question. Maybe adding a sentence or two about the steps you will take in approaching your question would make this a little clearer. It would be great to tell us which texts, books of the OT, passages, etc. you would be focusing on, or mentioning how you would be analyzing the texts of your choice. Would you be looking solely at language, etymology, structure of narrative in understanding the imagery of mythical creatures depicted in the texts? Or would you focus on locating earlier historical sources that may have influenced these texts? Adding such information into this paragraph would make it a little clearer as to how you will go about pursuing your research.
In total, an excellent proposal, providing great background information and using examples from primary and secondary sources to outline the field of study. I’m really excited to read your work, as I find the topic of mythical creatures amazing. Persian mystical literature has tons of this kind of imagery and symbolism, so I would love to see how this compares to ancient Israelite sources!
-Adam
Hi Andrew,
I had a chance to read your proposal this morning. I have just a few minor comments, which I hope will help.
1) While reading your proposal, one question that I found myself asking was how early thinkers (I’m thinking of early medieval thinkers here) interpreted these symbolic or otherwise real beings. Perhaps this is outside your field of research, but I wondered about the nature of early attempts to read these creatures.
2) Perhaps to make your case for the contemporary cultural/religious relevance of your project even stronger you might suggest that your future research, maybe post MA, will take you into comparative work between contemporary notions of these creatures and ancient notions. Perhaps showing that many people still today ‘believe in’ these creatures with various important cultural consequences. I don’t know, just an idea.
3) I find the field of mythology fascinating and so have many others, many important 20th century thinkers (Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Levi-Strauss and so on) . You might want to hint at the relevance of the symbolism of myth in culture, especially for understanding the movements of pour cultural psyche.
4) As for relevance to other fields of scholarship dealing with the ancient world, I can say that in classics, my own area, the importance of understanding Near Eastern mythology and religion is essential for understanding the origins of Greek and Roman mythology and religious practice. Many courses in classics begins with a survey of Near Eastern history, religion and so on. This has become much more of an issue and ‘field’ in recent years. The 5th century historian, Herodotus, in his highly important work deals extensively with Near Eastern influences and syncretisation. Your research is also relevant to other fields, other Near Eastern and Western fields of research. You might want to point to this as well.
I hope this helps a bit and my apologies if it's not mystical - I'll try next time!
babak
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