Leviathan (mythology)
Leviathan ( Hebrew לִויָתָן liwjatan "the winding one ") is the name of a sea monster in Judeo-Christian mythology . His description includes features of a crocodile , a kite , a snake and a whale .
Pre-Biblical Influences
The basis of the idea of Leviathan are old Babylonian and Canaanite myths . The oldest mention is the dragon-shaped Mesopotamian saltwater goddess Tiamat , who had to be defeated by the human- creating god Marduk (nicknamed Bel ) in order to create a home for the gods.
The picture becomes clearer with the Canaanite gods Ba'al and Anath , who, according to the clay tablets of Ugarit, defeated the seven-headed sea monster Lotan , who is equated with the sea god Yam from Ugaritic mythology . The similar image of the storm god Baal in the myths of Ugarit and in various psalms in the Bible and in the Book of Job is also striking .
Biblical-Talmudic tradition
origin
According to Ps 104,26 EU God formed Leviathan in order to “play” with him (standard translation ). According to the chapter Avoda Zara of the Babylonian Talmud , God used to do this in the last three hours of the day after studying the Torah , judging the world and nourishing the world. This theologically illustrates the power and sovereignty of the biblical God, for whom the terrifying nature of ancient oriental mythology is a powerless toy.
According to other Bible translations, God does not play with the Leviathan, but with the Leviathan in the sea or with the ships.
Jewish Bible
Leviathan occurs as a mythical animal , as a cosmic dragon animal , in the Tanach (Jewish Bible, the Old Testament of Christians) in Job and in the Book of Psalms . According to the description, the Leviathan mainly has features of a crocodile. In addition, there are also features of a dragon, a snake and a whale. Accordingly, in some Bible translations from Hebrew, it is also only translated with the name of one of these animals. Sometimes it is only understood as an allegory of the destructive power of the sea and thus as a counterpart to the land animal Behemoth and the bird Ziz , which, unlike Behemoth and Leviathan, is not of biblical origin.
A detailed description of the monster, portrayed as malicious, can be found in the book Job 40.25 - 41.26 EU , where his power and strength serve as a symbol for the fruitlessness of Job's rebellion against his fate.
“Can you pull the leviathan with the hook and grasp its tongue with a string? [...] When you put your hand on him, remember that it is a quarrel that you will not carry out. [...] Nobody is so bold as to be allowed to provoke him; [...] Who can reveal his dress to him? and who dare to grasp between his teeth? […] Its proud scales are like solid shields, tight and close together. […] Torches come out of his mouth and fiery sparks shoot out. [...] The limbs of his flesh cling to one another and hold on to him so that he cannot fall apart. His heart is as hard as a stone [...] When he rises, the strong are terrified [...] If you want to go to him with a sword, he doesn't stir [...] He makes the deep sea boil like a pot [...] There is no one like him on earth; it is made to be fearless. He despises everything that is high "
Destruction by God
Since every human effort must be put to shame before such a monster ( Hi 3: 8 EU ), it is reserved for God himself to defeat the Leviathan at the end of time. According to Ps 74,14 EU he will " bruise his head", according to Isa 27,1 EU "kill with his hard, big, strong sword [...]", according to another translation he will also strangle. Finally, according to the Moed Katan treatise in the Babylonian Talmud , the Leviathan is fished out of the sea like an ordinary fish.
After a hymn usually performed at Shavuot called Akdamut or the Talmud treatise Bava Bathra , after the battle of Armageddon at the end of time there is a fight between the monsters Leviathan and Behemoth, in which the latter tries to impale his adversary with his horns while Leviathan hits the land monster with his fins.
Finally the Lord will kill them both with his mighty sword and give the flesh of the two monsters together with that of the bird Ziz for food to the righteous. He will make tents and canopies out of their skin. Accordingly, the Sukkot prayer contains not only the well-known pious wish that they may meet “next year in Jerusalem”, but also that they come together in a tabernacle covered with the skin of the Leviathan.
Apocrypha
From these biblical traditions, the Apocrypha draws the motif of the Leviathan as a female mythical creature who, together with his male counterpart Behemoth, is sent by God to chastise people ( 1. Hen 59.7 ff.). While the latter rules the desert, Leviathan rests at the bottom of the sea. In the end, both victims will be saved by God's grace (1 Hen 60: 7).
Christian Middle Ages
In Christian times and culture, Leviathan is associated with the devil , but is also understood as an allegory for chaos and disorder, for mankind's distance from God and sinfulness . For Thomas Aquinas and the Jesuit Peter Binsfeld , he represents one of the seven deadly sins as the demon of envy .
Mandaeism
In Mandaeanism the Leviathan is also called Ur .
Modern times and the present
Leviathan as a metaphor for omnipotence
The mythological monster inspired Thomas Hobbes to use the title of his famous political philosophical work Leviathan (1651), in which the omnipotence of the state postulated by Hobbes is compared with the invincibility of the biblical monster. More recently, such a role has also been ascribed to the financial markets or nature ( volcanic eruptions , earthquakes , tsunami ).
In the literature
The material was also often taken up and processed in literary works. The description of the Leviathan in Heinrich Heine's poem Disputation from his cycle Romanzero is based on the biblical-Talmudic tradition in great detail . “Rabbi Juda” tries to illustrate the advantages of Judaism to his opponent, the Franciscan “Frater José”, not least by means of “ our Lord's favorite fish ”. " Boiled in white garlic broth [...] " his meat will taste "more delicate than turtles " for " the pious elect " at the banquet at the end of time .
The novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville equates Leviathan with the whale. The Leviathan motif was processed more freely in the novels of Joseph Roth , Paul Auster and Julien Green .
In the oratorio The Creation by Joseph Haydn (text: Gottfried van Swieten ) the Leviathan is mentioned as an example for the animals of the water: “ From the deepest seabed - Leviathan rolls up on foaming waves ”.
In his libretto for Darius Milhaud's opera Christophe Colomb (1930), Paul Claudel mentions Leviathan and his opponent Behemoth as the elemental forces of nature during a stormy crossing across the Atlantic.
In his essay Der Waldgang from 1951, Ernst Jünger compares the modern, bureaucratic and automated world with a high-tech cruise ship that could also develop into a Leviathan for its passengers. With this he alludes to the tendency of modern mass societies towards totalitarianism and its consequences.
In the novel, Not Forgetting the Whale of John Ironmonger a beached whale serves the residents of two villages as solid food in greatest need. The novel makes several references to the Leviathan and quotes the book of Job .
In the movie
The experimental documentary Leviathan by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel from the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab from 2012 deals with industrial fishing and shows what goes on on an American fishing boat.
The title of the Russian drama Leviathan from 2014 alludes to the omnipotence of the Russian authorities, consisting of state, administration and church, which is critically examined in the film.
The American horror film Leviathan by director George Pan Cosmatos from 1989 is set on a sunken freighter that bears the name Leviathan.
In the science fiction - television series Farscape a leviathan called is Moya a living, biomechanical spaceship in its inner space, the crew survived.
In the fantasy series Supernatural , the leviathans play an important role in the battle between good and evil. In it they are described as God's first beasts, which he created before humans and angels . Because of the Leviathans, God created purgatory .
Also in George RR Martin's epic The Song of Ice and Fire he is called the greatest horror of the “trembling sea”.
Trivia
The Leviathan can be found in computer games like EVE Online , StarCraft II , Borderlands, Final Fantasy , Mass Effect 3 , Aura Kingdom and Subnautica , in television series like Supernatural and Yu-Gi-Oh! use in both protagonistic and antagonistic form.
In the trading card game Magic: The Gathering , Leviathans represent their own type of creature with mostly high attack and resistance values. In the illustrations - based on the biblical templates - they are often represented as hybrid creatures with parts of fish, dragons or snakes.
In the video game The Binding of Isaac , "Leviathan" is a possible transformation.
On May 6, 2012, a 93-meter-high roller coaster named Leviathan opened at Canada's Wonderland amusement park . The theme is the mythological sea monster.
The Pokémon Kyogre from the Pokémon video game series is based on the Leviathan.
In Poland, the Lewiatan supermarket chain is named after it.
The Leviathan is a central force in the Vertigo comic series The Unwritten .
In Warhammer 40,000 , there is a Hive Fleet Tyranid called Leviathan.
The first novel in the series The Expanse by James SA Corey is entitled Leviathan Awakes. The Leviathan here stands for a new alien power that is activated at the end of the novel.
The German folk - band Mr. Hurley & the powder monkeys from Osnabrück , published in August 2019 their fifth studio album, which is called Leviathan bears and a titular track, for which there is also a music video contains.
The company Lego has in 2018 in the series IDEAS brought out a bottle ship named "Leviathan" (set number 21313). The model was designed by Jake Sadovich.
The Danish rock band Volbeat released their seventh album in August 2019 called Rewind, Replay, Rebound , which contains a song called Leviathan . In the song, the Leviathan is portrayed as an old friend who is called to free the world from all evil.
literature
- Christoph Uehlinger: Leviathan. In: Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter W. van der Horst (eds.): Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. DDD . 2nd extensively revised edition. Suffering u. a. 1999, ISBN 90-04-11119-0 , pp. 511-515.
- Harald Gebhardt and Mario Ludwig : About dragons, yetis and vampires. On the trail of mythical animals. BLV-Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-405-16679-9 .
- Thomas Hobbes : Leviathan . Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 3-15-008348-6 , (numerous editions).
- Joseph Roth : The Leviathan . 4th edition, Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-462-02082-X .
- Arno Schmidt : Enthymesis. Leviathan or The Best of the Worlds . Haffmans, Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-251-80060-4 .
Web links
- Article Leviathan in the Bible Lexicon at bibelkommentare.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans Jonas : The Gnostic Religion. 3. Edition. Boston 2001, p. 117.
- ↑ John Ironmonger : The Whale and the End of the World . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-10-397427-0 (English: Not Forgetting the Whale . London 2015. Translated by Tobias Schnettler and Maria Poets).
- ^ Songfacts: Leviathan by Volbeat - Songfacts. Retrieved January 10, 2020 .