Leviathan is a sea creature, a sea serpent demon noted in theology and mythology. The original meaning of the leviathan denotes something “wreathed, twisted, in folds.” Yet the biblical Leviathan is not merely a serpent. It is referenced in the genre bible as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon. Verse 22 describes this creature as having a powerful neck, which is not generally distinguished for its neck. Verse 14 mentions terrible teeth. Verse 20 describes nostrils, indicating an air-breathing creature, out of these nostrils geothermal smoke, as out of a seething pot or Calderon. Verses 31-32 describe Leviathan in a deep-sea environment, befitting this creature. It is referred to in the Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, and the Pseudepigrapha, all books. Of Enoch.
Isaiah 27:1 uses the term “piercing serpent”. Leviathan is often an embodiment of chaos, threatening to eat the damned hen whose lives are over. In the end, it is annihilated. Christian theologians identified Leviathan with the demon of the deadly sin of envy. According to Ophite diagrams, Leviathan encapsulates the space of the material world.
The book of Job is a book of the Hebrew scripture that is often counted among the masterpieces of world literature. It is found in the third section of the biblical canon known as Ketu vim. The book’s theme is the eternal problem of unmerited suffering, and it’s named after its central character, Job, who attempts to understand the sufferings that engulf him.
That book of Jon may be divided into two sections of prose narrative, consisting of a prologue, chapters 1-2, and an epilogue, 42:7, 17, and intervening poetic disputation chapters 3, 42:6. The prose narratives date to before the 6th century BCE, and the poetry has been dated between the 6th and 4th century BCE. Chapters 28 and 32-37 were probably later additions.
Was Leviathan Identified?
The animal is being referred to as a pilosaur, which was a massive marine reptile that used its 130 dagger-like teeth to demolish its prey. In the spring of 2022, the skull of the sea monster was discovered and later removed intact from the black cliffs that line the coast near Dorset, England.
This particular skull measures 2meteres in length, and it’s believed to have had a biting force of 33,000 newtons, which is comparable to that of a Tyrannosaurus rex, just to put it in perspective. 1,000 newtons. One of the reasons given for such a strong biting force comes from a paleobiologist named Emily Rayfield. She examined the large circular openings at the back of the skull, which she determined reveal the size of the muscles used for operating the jaws of the pilosaur.
Are These Bones of Leviathan?
Wadi al Hiltan is a paleontological site in southwest Egypt. Whose name means valley of the whales. The dry, desert site is strewn with gigantic skeletons of ancient, early whales. Over thousands of years, erosion has gradually revealed these creatures. Could this be the creature described in the Bible? One peculiar scripture is the Psalms, which illustrates not only the beast, but also a Wadi al Hilan type setting. Thou didn’t crush the heads of the leviathan, thou didn’t give him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. Perhaps this psalm was written by an author who had seen such a startling sight as the image to the right.
The crushed once fearsome skull of a sea creature is now strewn our in the wilderness. Surely basilosaurus skeletons would have been regarded with fear and awe by the ancient Egyptians, Israelites, and other peoples of the Near East who witnessed them, and surely they would have been described by them in some manner.
Still Alive?
It would appear that God would describe a creature to Job that he would be familiar with one that, as a leader in a wilderness territory, would have either seen or heard described. Such would be the case with the scattered, ancient remains of Basilosaurus around the Middle East, including Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, and particularly at Egypt’s Wadi al-Hitan, a location that Job may well have been familiar with, given the textual setting around the time of the patriarchal migrations to Egypt. Likewise, some form of Leviathan myth is known throughout the ancient Near East. Are they related to the gigantic remains? Ugaritic texts from Syria and fitting roughly mention a serpentine monster called Lotan, a word directly connected to the Hebrew leviathan. Mesopotamian myths describe a parallel beast.
The Point of Leviathan
But why the biblical account of Leviathan? Why is a chapter full of Job dedicated to this creature? Why is it described in several additional biblical passages? God was clearly teaching a job lesson of humility. A Mortal man is in a match for the mighty Leviathan. Monster of monsters. He neither created it nor can stand before it. Yet the beast is as nothing before the mighty god who created it. God has the capability to do this to this beast, and Psalms and Isaiah describe just that, God’s destruction. The lesson of Behemoth and Leviathan. Then there is a humbling of self-righteousness and self-importance. If man is as nothing before there mere physical beasts, how much less so before god? God recorded the Leviathan in scripture for a reason. He wants us to realise just how insignificant we are apart from him and the power that we have with him. No mortal man would stand a chance against a 20-meter basilosaurus. Yet God is capable of plucking it from the water and leaving its bones scattered across the desert.
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