Real Monsters of the Old Testament
This probably sounds like clickbait, but I assure you, what we are discussing is as real as can be. There really are monsters in the Old Testament. Anytime that someone tries to mention such an odd sounding subject, we have this tendency to toss everything into the proverbial loony bin. Most Christians believe that the Old Testament is literal history, to be taken at absolute face value. So the moment I start claiming there are monsters in the Old Testament, I am in effect, claiming that our understanding of the primeval world is pretty much totally wrong.
Perhaps this requires a deeper look. One that will more full explain what’s going on. In my introductory post for “Monsters and gods” I went through a brief explanation of The Nephilim. The unholy offspring of humanity and fallen angels. Easily of most bizarre accounts in the Bible. But this is just where things start to get interesting.
Leviathan: More Real Than We Know
In Job Chapter 41, God is in the middle of chastising Job. God specifically brings up a terrifying creature called the Leviathan. For the entire chapter we are given a plethora of details, from rock hard armor, to fire shooting from his mouth, to his utter fearlessness in the face of mankind’s strongest weaponry. As a lifelong fan of monster movies, this is endlessly fascinating. As a writer, this is absolute gold.
I’ve heard some ridiculous attempts to explain this away as nothing more than a crocodile. Seriously. These attempts make me want to laugh until I can’t breathe. Imagine that. A crocodile. That is massive, and shoots fire from its mouth? I’m sorry but I really do not see this. Frankly I think this cheapens what is really happening here. I’ll deal with this more in an upcoming post. But from all the descriptions we have, the picture painted of the Leviathan is starting, and vivid. A massive sea dragon, right in our Bibles.
Now how about the book of Ezekiel? Right in the first chapter Ezekiel recounts a vision of one of the most bizarre creatures I have ever heard of. A creature with four faces and four wings, with the foot of a calf, and under each wing they had human hands. I have to say, had I been the one to see such a wild sight, I am not certain I would sound much like a holy prophet. Then we have the famous ‘wheel within a wheel’ description, that follows these creatures. Really sit down and attempt to visualize such a creature, down to the last detail and see what you come up with.
The Monster King: Og of Bashan
We haven’t even gone over the giants in the Bible. We all know the story of David and Goliath. But there is more, take King Og of Bashan in Deuteronomy chapter 3.
For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.” – Deuteronomy 3:11
Look, the primeval world painted for us in the Old Testament was a dangerous place, populated by unnatural creatures that terrorized mankind. We can quibble over small details, but there is no doubt about it. There are monsters in the Bible. The sort of stuff that makes Godzilla look like a wimpy lizard.
Worshipping Malevolent Entities
Understanding that such monsters existed, can help us understand the Old Testament better. Here’s the really trippy bit, there were cultures that actually worshipped such unholy beasts. Throughout the Old Testament God expresses outrage at people worshiping gods like Moloch, Rempham, Dagon, and Baal. To us living in such a pluralistic world, this doesn’t seem to warrant such anger.
Virtually all pagan cultures had their own monstrous creatures that they worshipped. A good example is the god Anubis of Egypt, a terrifying half human, half dog creature, god of the dead. In ancient China, there were may famous examples of massive dragons that were also worshipped. In every single pagan culture we know of, not only were these monstrous creatures feared, they were worshipped as well.
The Bible is the only text that speaks of such monsters, and explicitly condemns worship of such creatures. Pagan cultures would view these monsters as simply a part of the natural order of things, whereas Scripture teaches that such creatures were an aberration of nature. Frankly this makes far more sense than the pagan worldview. It also helps us better explain the ancient myths of gods make much more sense. I don’t believe for one second that Zeus, Anubis or what have you, ever existed. What I do believe is that such wild tales were the result of generations passing down stories of the Nephilim roaming the earth. With each generation what probably happened is that each generation couldn’t help embellishing the stories, and so as the stories were passed down they mutated into the pagan mythologies we know of today.
Think of it, what if these cultures weren’t just bowing to a bunch of wooden statues, but were actually worshipping monstrous, malevolent creatures? Maybe now the texts will make a little more sense. In his novel ‘The House At the End of The World’ Dean Koontz portrays Moloch as an ancient, supernatural entity feasting on the souls of men. Honestly, that isn’t off. Koontz’s fictional portrayal is actually closer to the Bible than most of the sermons that only treat this from an anti-abortion perspective. Though to be clear, the children of Israel were sacrificing their children to this entity. We are talking a level of barbarism and cruelty that ought to horrify all of us.
Why Have Evangelicals Ignored This For So Long?
For some reason over the centuries, Christians have been hesitant about embracing some of the darker elements in the Bible. Personally, I really don’t get it. We shouldn’t avoid things that make us uncomfortable. After all, the entire point of Christianity is to deal with the ‘uncomfortable’ things in our lives. For some strange reason, in evangelical culture we have a tendency to avoid things like Jesus casting out unclean sprits or dealing with concepts like the Nephilim. I’m blown away at the amount of teachers that believe the text in Matthew discussing the dead coming to life after the death of Christ, never actually happened. See what I mean? We just don’t want to deal with anything that doesn’t fit in with our tiny little boxes. As a result we end up ignoring some fairly important concepts and truths.
In conclusion, yes there are absolutely monsters in the Bible. Before anyone starts objecting by somehow attempting to compare this to pagan legends, let me stop you right there. The monstrous creatures of the Bible have nothing to do with pagan legends, because of one key difference, which I’ll briefly explain.
In pagan literature/legends, monsters do exist but they exist as a part of the ‘natural order of things’. This is an important and very deep concept. This is just one of the many ways in which Christianity is completely different from every other world religion/philosophy. Monsters do not exist as part of the natural order of things, instead they are treated as an aberration of nature.
As a reader, I’ve read countless novels dealing with dystopian sci-fi scenarios, and all the while thinking, ‘that’s a great story’. In the Bible I see the explanation for all of these stories we tell and have have told through the centuries. There is a root to all of this. There is a basis for all of these bizarre and strange tales we tell.
Let’s be honest, as evangelicals we have been slow to accept anything ‘weird’. Unfortunately we have been reluctant to accept anything that doesn’t line up with our Western way of thinking. (I blame the influence of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine for this) What I am getting at is that we are dealing with texts where the writers had a completely different mindset than we do today. Sadly as Western evangelicals we have spent years misappropriating many texts to our detriment.
Ultimately my point has been that we should appreciate this difference in mindset. All of the supposed ‘errors’ of Christianity through the years were actually an error in understanding. Usually what would happen is texts would be completely misinterpreted and misapplied. None of which the Bible can realistically be blamed for.
