God's Fight with the Dragon, Part IV

The Invention of Satan as Cosmic Dragon from the Axial Age Combat Myth

Despite the lofty hopes of the prophets, the return from exile in Babylon did not end Israel’s woes. Except for their relatively brief independence after the Maccabean revolt, the Jews were never again the true proprietors of their own territory, but rather played the vassal state to a succession of far more powerful empires—Persian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and then Roman. Thus subjugated, hopes of reconstituting the Davidic monarchy dwindled. The Temple, however, was indeed rebuilt (albeit after much delay and frustration)—only to become a lightning rod of criticism, as zealous groups lambasted the religious authorities with charges of corruption, hypocrisy, Hellenizing, and the like. So, while the exiles had returned, it could hardly be said that Israel’s world had been securely reset upon her former national pillars.

The Exile thus created fundamental difficulties for Israelite religion that were never fully resolved, even after return from Babylon in the late sixth century. Commenting on the prevailing post-Exilic sentiment from the return to the first century CE, N. T. Wright concludes:

Most Jews of this period, it seems, would have answered the question ‘where are we?’ in the language which, reduced to its simplest form, meant: we are still in exile. They believed that, in all the senses which mattered, Israel’s exile was still in progress. Although she had come back from Babylon, the glorious message of the prophets remained unfulfilled.[1]

As Mowinckel observed, the tendency to project Israel’s future restoration “as an enthronement day of Yahweh with cosmic dimensions” becomes a core tenet of Jewish eschatology.[2] Indeed, as the frustrations which preoccupied late prophecy continued unanswered into the post-Exilic period, this tendency and its cosmic scope only grew. The prophetic outlook became increasingly pessimistic, until all hope for the possibility of reform through human means had eroded. Only divine intervention could right the myriad wrongs which Israel now suffered. Like a barren land in the dead of summer, Israel was withered and weltering, the oppressive heat of foreign domination still stinging and the Davidic monarchy still a corpse. Only Yahweh’s victorious coming—his slaying of Death and Dragon in salvific rejuvenation—could truly restore the people and bring about the radical transformation promised by the prophets. Thus, with the rise of apocalypticism, the combat myth retained its immense significance in Jewish thought, as writers turned in ever heightened zeal to its reassuring framework of divine victory over Chaos.[3]

However, sheer enlargement of scope was hardly the most important modification to the combat myth occasioned by these events. Rather, key theological developments during this period would serve to truly transform the myth from a powerful metaphor of restoration into the all-encompassing worldview of apocalypticism. Of these developments, certainly the most important was the Devil.

Despite the importance of the rise of the Devil in post-Exilic thought, it is not my intention to attempt here a full-scale examination of the Devil’s historical evolution, as that task is both beyond the scope of the present study and has already been tackled quite effectively by other authors besides.[4] What does warrant investigation, however, is the Devil’s connection to the combat myth, since it is profound and fundamental. Indeed, the very conception of Satan as he appears in early Jewish and Christian texts owes largely to apocalyptic transformations of the ancient Near Eastern combat myth. Appreciating this continuity with the Chaoskampf tradition is crucial for understanding the role of that tradition in apocalyptic texts, including the gospels.

Persistence of Myth: The Devil as Chaos-Enemy

The centrality of myth and mythic frameworks to apocalypticism has long been noted by scholars. So Frank Moore Cross, for example, speaks of “a second era of the recrudescence of myth in the rise of proto-apocalyptic.”[5] Indeed, the general impression from surveying the relevant extant texts is of emphatic return to mythic paradigms with the advent of  apocalyptic eschatology.

While this basic significance of myth is clear, the idea of revival or, to use Cross’s term, “recrudescence,” is a bit more tenuous. This would suggest that, at some point (presumably during the height of classical prophecy), the popularity of myth declined or lapsed in some way, allowing for this later return to mythic frameworks. However, when we appreciate Hanson’s point that the works of the classical prophets, far from representing Israelite “orthodoxy,” in all likelihood but showcase the rather idiosyncratic derivations of a vocal, albeit poetic, but nevertheless marginal group, the notion that myth “went away” becomes considerably problematic. Indeed, in all likelihood the traditional mythic narratives as safeguarded by the Jerusalem court and cult remained more or less the dominant frame of reference for common Israelite piety.

In fact, the only time that would present a likely break with this tradition is the Exile itself—or, since those who went into exile would have carried the traditions, the generation born after the defeat of 587. Yet it is precisely around this generation and the return from exile that we see this supposed “recrudescence” of myth. This leaves a very short time indeed for the whole mythic framework of traditional Israelite religion to be forgotten or dismissed and subsequently revived—and, besides, is certainly not what is usually meant by such a recrudescence of myth in apocalypticism. Moreover, given the commonly accepted idea that the Exile itself provided the very impetus for preservation and codification of Israelite religion, this last position strains the basic credibility of such a notion.

Rather than positing a “return” to myth with the rise of apocalypticism, it seems far more likely that mythic frameworks and narratives remained potent and vital aspects of popular Israelite religion both during and after the Babylonian Captivity. The sense of decline or depreciation owes rather to the prominence of extant prophetic texts in the canon—which, as we have seen, even in themselves do not necessarily dilute mythical material, but generally seem to place less emphasis on myth because its role is more referential, poetic, and allusive than liturgical texts such as the Psalms.

This seemingly pedantic distinction is in fact of some importance, as accepting continuity rather than discontinuity for the central role of myth in Israelite religion more adequately explains one aspect of myth in apocalypticism: its antiquity. Indeed, the mythic resonances we encounter in apocalyptic texts reveal a familiarity with particularly ancient traditions. In some cases, the only precedent available for comparison is, by the time of the apocalyptic text, over a thousand years old, and comes to us only from the Ugaritic material. So, for example, we saw that the language describing Leviathan in the Isaianic Apocalypse (c. 500 BCE or even later) is so similar to that describing Baal’s defeat of Litan (c. 1400 BCE) that scholars propose direct dependence on a common West Semitic tradition:[6]

Isaiah 27:1

…punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,

Leviathan the twisting serpent…

KTU 1.5.i.1-4

…killed Litan, the Fleeing Serpent,

Annihilated the Twisty Serpent…

This employment of very ancient traditions is a recurring element in apocalyptic texts. Such antiquity suggests enduring lines of transmission whose living and unbroken connection with the past adds further weight to the notion of myth’s persistence in Israelite religion.

For transforming the combat myth rebellion into a complete eschatological worldview, apocalyptic writers had a host of traditional material from which to draw. However, we often lack the original sources of this material, since by no means would all become canonical, and therefore preserved. Thus, ancient traditions—both cultic and mythic—inform apocalyptic texts which, though still current in some form at the time of composition, have since been lost to history. In short, says Collins, “the apocalyptic writers had at their disposal a much fuller mythology than is now extant in the Hebrew Bible.”[7]

Yet the same must be stressed about cultic expressions: religious praxis too lay at the disposal of apocalyptic writers. Inherently perishable, its interaction with apocalyptic literature would be less apparent than literary influences (even of reconstructed or hypothetical texts), yet is equally important. To the extent then that ancient ritual practice can be reconstructed, its bearing on apocalyptic texts must be considered. This is of special importance because, as demonstrated in the previous chapter, the rites of the New Year festival were central to proto-apocalyptic texts. As I shall show, this tendency continues into apocalypticism.

Though this will become more important in the pages to follow, for now, the recognition that mythic frameworks were securely entrenched in Israelite religious conceptions allows us to appreciate a vital aspect of the Devil’s development in apocalypticism. Namely, the Devil is described in the terms of the combat myth because he evolves out of the combat myth. The Chaoskampf tradition is not so much revived to articulate the cosmic battle between Yahweh and Satan; rather, the cosmic battle between Yahweh and Satan is a direct development from the cosmicsization of the combat myth.

Such is essentially the thesis of Neil Forsyth’s substantial work on the origins and development of the Devil, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth. In it, Forsyth persuasively demonstrates that the conception of the Devil found in early Jewish and Christian works in fact evolved out of that persistent ancient myth. So he writes:

One of the chief characteristics of Jewish apocalyptic literature is the revival, both during and after the exile, of ancient mythological modes of thought. Some of these mythological modes were no doubt learned fresh from Babylon itself, or borrowed from the successive oppressors, Persian, Greek, and Roman, but for the most part they had come from Canaanite sources and had been carried, whether as allusion or metaphor, within the sacred texts of Judaism itself. Those sacred scriptures must now be seen in the whole context, made available by the archaeologists, of ancient Near Eastern mythological systems. From these ancient systems, a continuous series of transformations leads to the various Christian efforts to tell the story of Christ's struggle with Satan.[8]

So it is that, from the original mythological systems of the ancient Near East, the Devil himself takes shape.

In apocalyptic transformations of the combat myth, says Forsyth, the Devil functions as a variant of the Chaoskampf rebel. We have encountered this rebellion theme before. While it is perhaps most evident in the Ninurta/Anzu myth, Forsyth suggests that “there are enough fragments and allusions in other contexts to encourage the assumption that the rebel plot was indeed a common variant of the combat pattern.”[9] He points specifically to the Enûma Eliš and the Baal Cycle as possessing aspects of this common variation.[10] However, he says, examples are more striking in the Hebrew tradition.[11]

Indeed, more recently Hugh Rowland Page, under the guidance of Frank Moore Cross, has posited the existence of a West Semitic myth of cosmic rebellion.[12] Like Forsyth, he sees Athtar, a figure in the Baal Cycle, as a potential prototypical anti-hero for such a myth. This myth, argues Page, has reflexes in biblical literature, the most notable examples of which are Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 and 29—texts whose mythological overtones we have already considered. He concludes his argument with a hypothetical reconstruction of the rebellion myth, based mostly upon the later biblical texts which may attest it:

After having enjoyed primacy of place within the pantheon as one of the creator’s most perfect entities—endowed with wisdom and beauty (cf. Ezekiel 28:3,-3, 12b, 15, 17)—Athtar conspired to make war against El and wrest control of the pantheon and the cosmos from him. He was corrupted by the very characteristics that made him unique among his divine peers (Ezekiel 28:2, 5, 15-17) and his hubris led him to claim equality with El (Ezekiel 28:2, 6, 9; Isaiah 14:14). He boasts of sitting in El’s throne (Ezekiel 28:2), of being in possession of a wisdom comparable to that of his wise patron and benefactor (Ezekiel 28:5), and, indeed, of being El (Ezekiel 29:9). He had honorable status on El’s mountain (Ezekiel 28:13) where he communed with other astral gods before corruption led to his demise (Ezekiel 28:13-18). He aspired to rise above the circumpolar stars, to set his throne on El’s mountain in the far north, to mount the clouds like Baal, and to make himself like Elyon (El) (Isaiah 14:13-15). He declared war against El and pitched his battle encampment at El’s tent-shrine (Daniel 11:45). He was defeated, driven from his place on the holy mount (Ezekiel 28:16), and exiled to the underworld (Psalm 82:7; Isaiah 14:9-11, 14-19; Ezekiel 28:8).[13]

Whether or not such a West Semitic myth ever existed in such a concentrated form is certainly debatable. Indeed, it seems more likely that rebellion was simply the principle undercurrent of various combat myths: any challenge to existing kingship—be it from an Azag, Anzu, Yamm, Mot, or other villain—was essentially an act of rebellion against the prevailing and proper rule of the storm-god. In this sense then, Forsyth need not speak of a rebellion “variant,” since rebellion in a broad way lies at the heart of every combat myth. Likewise, Page’s reconstruction is helpful principally as an abstraction of the various expressions of this persistent rebellion theme. It is the ideal that, though it likely never existed in any “pure” form, finds partial representation in most of the combat myths we have considered.[14]

Taken up by later apocalyptic writers, this rebellion theme in the combat myth proved highly effective at explaining one of the fundamental difficulties in the post-Exilic theodicy. So Gregory Boyd observes:

Assuming that there is one eternal Creator God who is all-good and all-powerful, it is illogical to posit a foundational structural evil within the cosmos (which is the main point of the Chaoskampf passages) without postulating a significant rebellion at some previous point that has corrupted the cosmos (which is the subsidiary point of the Chaoskampf passages). In short, if the all-powerful Creator is perfectly good but creation is largely evil, something must have interfered with creation.[15]

Indeed, philosophical reflection on the origin and nature of evil no doubt provided one of the chief catalysts for the Devil’s development. Israel’s former theodicy of 1) national sin, 2) consequent punishment, 3) repentance, and 4) eventual redemption/salvation was strained to breaking with the calamities of the Exile. The traditional notion, insofar as it was articulated in prophetic literature, that Yahweh alone was the cause of both good and evil became increasingly untenable after the unrelenting suffering of captivity and subjugation. It is because of these trials that the concept of a Devil figure became theologically attractive at all. This theodicean theory lies at the core of Russell’s analysis, who writes:

Both sins and punishments were so frequent and so great that they seemed disproportionate to the powers of puny man to displease the deity. And always at the back of their minds the Hebrews wondered how it was that the God, all powerful and all knowing as he was, would permit humanity to sin. The corrupt will of human beings seemed insufficient to explain the vast and terrifying quantity of evil in the world. For an answer, the Hebrews turned to another explanation: the instigator of evil was a malignant spirit whose power to offend was far greater than that of mere mortals. The malignant, destructive aspect of Yahweh was subtracted from him and ascribed to a different spiritual power, the Devil.[16]

If this were the reasoning, it was the combat myth that supplied the material from which to realize such a theological conception. In this way, the combat myth, already enlarged to a cosmic scope, becomes the vehicle for developing a dualistic conception in Judaism. The cosmic chaos-enemy becomes the Devil.

Because of this direct link with the ancient myth pattern, the central themes of the combat myth have clear reflexes in apocalyptic eschatology. Indeed, the fundamental issue of order still lies at its heart, though now with a decidedly more “spiritual” and less materialistic focus. Put another way, the basic focus has shifted from agricultural/institutional concerns to theological/metaphysical ones. Rather than answering “Why do the fields go barren, and when will fertility return?” it seeks to answer “Why is there evil in the world, and when will justice return?” In any event, the agricultural, cultic, political, and philosophical/theological concerns all carry over in modified form—that is, aggrandized and given cosmic revalorizations:

Agricultural. Agricultural ideas certainly have their cosmic reflexes in the apocalyptic combat myth. First, simple rejuvenation becomes the endless bounty of the eschatological New Eden/Paradise. Yahweh retains his essential character as the creator god—an identity once intricately linked with being god of the storm: the bringer of rain, fertility, and life. As the defeat of Sea, Dragon, and Death had ushered in a new year of growth, so the defeat of the Devil shall usher in a new paradisal world of perpetual abundance. All shall return to the way it had been at the first creation of the world—that is, the world will become a second Eden.

We already saw early glimpses of this in proto-apocalyptic texts. So Isaiah 35:6 spoke of the cosmic rejuvenation, saying:

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,

     and streams in the desert;

the burning sand shall become a pool,

     and the thirsty ground springs of water;

the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,

     the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

Similarly, Second Zechariah wrote that, on the day of Yahweh’s final battle, “there shall be neither cold nor frost,” and “living waters shall flow out of Jerusalem” which “shall continue in summer as in winter” (14:7-9). These notions are expanded in full-blown apocalypticism, where the defeat of the Devil shall be the necessary event to bring it all about.

Secondly, the idea of revival has its cosmic reflex in the idea of resurrection of the dead. Just as Yahweh’s defeat of Death allowed the fields to revive, so will his defeat of the Devil allow the faithful to revive. As the ultimate source of evil and Chaos, the Devil’s end is analogous to Mot’s. Indeed, we have also seen the initial stages of this idea in proto-apocalyptic passages. So, in the Isaianic Apocalypse, the prophet rejoices,

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.

     O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

                                For your dew is radiant dew,

     and the earth will give birth to those long dead. (Is 26:19)

This revival shall occur precisely because, as we read a few verses later, it is on that day that Yahweh shall slay Leviathan. Indeed, on that day, Yahweh shall swallow Death! With the rise of full-scale apocalypticism, these ideas are developed into a complete theology of resurrection.

Cultic. We have also seen clear examples of how proto-apocalyptic prophets employed the chief cultic setting for the combat myth: the Israelite New Year festival—the Feast of Tabernacles. This association is also developed in apocalyptic eschatology. The New Year and its cultic rites become the very archetype for the cosmic New Year. Just as Yahweh and his people celebrated with a feast the god’s defeat of the chaos-monsters (which re-created the world and returned it to its initial state of purity), so shall Yahweh and his people celebrate with a feast at his defeat of the Devil (which will create a new world free from all impurity).

Indeed, the Feast of Tabernacles itself becomes the cosmic eschatological banquet. This cosmic feast is already mentioned in the Isaianic Apocalypse when, after he has swallowed up Death,

On this Mountain, Yahweh of Hosts will make for all peoples

     a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,

     of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. (Is 25:6, ESV)

In apocalyptic texts, this festival, the celebration of Yahweh’s defeat of Chaos, is aggrandized to the cosmic festival at the end of time, celebrating Yahweh’s defeat of the Devil.

Indeed, in its original sense the “Day of Yahweh” meant the New Year festival’s day of procession. Then was the ark paraded and seen by the people, representing the great epiphany of Yahweh. In the apocalyptic aggrandizement, this becomes the “Day of Judgment” or the Day of Wrath, when the whole world shall see Yahweh come as the divine warrior and reassert his kingship. So in the Isaianic Apocalypse we read, “On that Day, Yahweh with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent…” Indeed, the phrase “on that Day” repeatedly punctuates Second Zechariah’s apocalyptic vision of the end. In his vision, we recall, it is on that Day that the nations will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This Day is the Feast of Tabernacles—the eschatological Day of Yahweh.

Additionally, the rites of purification, so important to the earthly New Year festival, are eschatologized into a full-scale purification of the world and Yahweh’s people. As we saw, these New Year purifications had meant a return to the original, pure time of creation—a time without tint, evil, or sickness. For this reason, purification and healing are essentially connected, and healing too is a recurrent aspect in apocalypticism. Even in Isaiah 35:5-6b, we read that, at the cosmic New Year,

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

     and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,

     and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

There can be no sickness or ill health when the cosmic New Year has revitalized all things. Even so, once Yahweh has defeated the Devil, all shall be made pure and healthy again.

Political. As with the combat myths of the ancient Near East, including Israel’s, the apocalyptic combat myth creates direct historical associations between the chaos-enemy and the political enemy of the people. Indeed, this tendency is emphatically continued in apocalypticism, as the political enemies of Israel are literally aggrandized to mythic proportions. So Israel’s overlords are equated with the beasts and monsters of Chaos. In the apocalyptic period, these are her Greek and Roman oppressors.

But the apocalyptic transformation of the myth takes this idea even further. Perhaps in keeping with its tendency to emphasize the spiritual over the material, it posits that these earthly oppressors are really but underlings of the true, cosmic enemy: the Devil. In this sense, Israel’s political oppressors play a similar role to the “helpers” of the chief chaos-enemy, such as Ninurta’s Stone Things, Yamm’s Dragon, Tiamet’s monstrous helpers, or even “the helpers of Rahab” in the Hebrew combat myth. In apocalypticism, political authorities are the Devil’s “helpers.”

Like the original myth, apocalypticism sees played out in the world a competition for kingship. One king is the god of order and life, the other of Chaos and destruction. The result of the ensuing battle shall determine the state of the cosmos as one of abundance, order, and justice, or one of death, Chaos, and evil. As the rebel of the apocalyptic combat myth, it is the Devil who has challenged Yahweh’s supreme reign. The Kingdom of the Devil has waged war against the Kingdom of God.

However, in a striking theological application of the myth, apocalypticists interpreted their current world of suffering and sin as signifying, in some sense, the temporary triumph of the Devil. In essence, the Devil has indeed usurped kingship from Yahweh, such that he now rules the world. This is why he is able to control the nations and oppress Israel. It is because of this usurpation that justice and peace for Yahweh’s people has been so frustrated. Only with Yahweh’s return and the second round of the battle can Israel ever be saved. In short, the earthly world of the apocalypticist exists between functions 7 and 8 in Forsyth’s schema: Enemy ascendant, and Hero recovers. At any moment, the battle may be rejoined. Indeed, this is the most fervent hope of the apocalypticist. For after this comes Victory.

Philosophical/Theological. Even in the pre-apocalyptic understanding of the combat myth, the divine warrior’s victory says something about the cosmos: the good god of order wins. He is powerful over the forces of Chaos; he can defeat them, and has. Thus, though the fields went barren and chaotic forces took hold of the world for a time, the god of order and prosperity was still in charge—he was king.

This same sense of assurance and ultimate optimism (if it may be so called) lies at the heart of the apocalyptic battle. Indeed, this is what Clifford means when he says that, of the ancient genres which most influenced apocalypticism, “the most important by far is the combat myth, for it provided not only imagery but also a conceptual framework for explaining divine rule over the world.”[17] This conceptual framework posits that Chaos and its dominance will be defeated. Though in the apocalyptic transformation this Chaos has been enlarged from agricultural dearth to ultimate ruin, disaster, and catastrophe, so too has the rejuvenation been enlarged. The combat shall end in victory; the power and scope of the enemy is proportional to the totality of the renewal. Just as, when sterility and death had overtaken the land, Yahweh had arrived, beaten back the forces of Chaos, and ensured order and fertility in the cosmos—so too, when evil and suffering have utterly consumed Israel, shall Yahweh come, destroy the forces of the Devil, and ensure justice and eternal life for his people. Such are the ways in which the original themes and concerns of the combat myth revalorized with cosmic, eschatological significance.

Before moving forward now with a survey of some apocalyptic texts with clear links to the Chaoskampf tradition, it is pertinent to summarize the general assertions so far considered. 1) Mythic frameworks are a dominant aspect of apocalypticism. This probably owes to the general persistence of myth’s significance in Israelite religion, from ancient times to the apocalyptic period. 2) This continuity of myth does well to explain the remarkable antiquity of mythic material in apocalyptic texts, which evince familiarity with particularly ancient traditions. 3) Unfortunately, given the nature of the sources, the specific lines of transmission which linked writers of the apocalyptic period with these very ancient traditions is not always clear. 4) The most important myth pattern for apocalyptic eschatology was the combat myth. Indeed, the Devil evolved out of, and for this reason found articulation through, apocalyptic transformations of this ancient myth. 5) Because of this genetic relationship, the combat myth’s agricultural, cultic, political, and philosophical/theological concerns reappear in the apocalyptic transformation of the myth, though now projected to a cosmic level. There is similar continuity with the typical images and structure of the myth.

These points reiterated, I shall now present a brief consideration of apocalyptic texts which give some evidence for these assertions. From them one can glean the importance of the combat myth for the apocalyptic worldview, and, with this appreciation, start upon analysis of the Gospel of Mark.

Yahweh vs. Azazel and Semjaza (1 Enoch)

As noted above, the theme of rebellion in the combat myth was crucial for developing a new theology of sin and evil centered upon a Devil figure. This idea of the Devil as cosmic rebel finds perhaps its earliest and most influential expression in the apocalyptic work 1 Enoch. The text as we have it now is probably a composite of various material written between the fourth and first centuries CE.[18] In it, we get an early glimpse of the Devil evolving out of the combat myth as the rebel angel.

One of the work’s earliest sections develops an enticingly brief story found in Geneses 6:1-4, in which the “sons of God” descend from heaven in order to copulate with mortal women in the antediluvian period. However, the author of 1 Enoch strikingly adapts this older story by depicting the “sons of god” as the Watchers: angels in heaven who lust after women on earth. Led by the angels Azazel and Semjaza, these Watchers form a pact to transgress Yahweh’s laws and eventually descend to earth to fulfill their evil desires.

As in Genesis, their intercourse with women produces Giants. Here, however, the Giants are not great men or heroes, but destructive abominations who eventually attack human beings and terrorize the earth. In addition to all of this, the Watchers also reveal forbidden heavenly knowledge to mortals, including divination, astrology, and the making of war materials. Through all of these acts, wickedness and suffering are introduced into the world—not by Yahweh, nor by man, but by rebellious angels.

Eventually, the chief angels alert Yahweh to these disasters, at which point the god intervenes to put an end to the evils. So he commands that Azazel and Semjaza be bound and imprisoned:

And secondly the Lord said to Raphael, “Bind Azaz’el hand and foot (and) throw him into the darkness!” And he made a hole in the desert which was in Duda’el and cast him there; he threw on top of him rugged and sharp rocks. And he covered his face in order that he may not see light; and in order that he may be sent into the fire on the great Day of Judgment. (1 Enoch 10:4-6a )

Michael is ordered to do the same with Semjaza, binding him to be left captive in the earth until the Day of Judgment. Such means of defeat clearly employs the imagery of the combat myth. The binding motif is obvious and recalls the fate of numerous chaos-enemies. Moreover, by being cast into a pit in the desert, recurrent elements of the scattering motif are present, as the bodies of Yamm/the Dragon, Leviathan, and the cosmic rebel in Ezekiel 29 were all cast into the desert after their defeat.

After subduing the rebellious angelic leaders is complete, a cosmic rejuvenation is promised for the world:

And then shall the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and shall all be planted with trees and be full of blessing. And all desirable trees shall be planted on it, and they shall plant vines on it: and the vine which they plant thereon shall yield wine in abundance, and as for all the seed which is sown thereon each measure (of it) shall bear a thousand, and each measure of olives shall yield ten presses of oil. And cleanse thou the earth from all oppression, and from all unrighteousness, and from all sin, and from all godlessness: and all the uncleanness that is wrought upon the earth destroy from off the earth. And all the children of men shall become righteous, and all nations shall offer adoration and shall praise Me, and all shall worship Me. And the earth shall be cleansed from all defilement, and from all sin, and from all punishment, and from all torment, and I will never again send (them) upon it from generation to generation and for ever. (1 Enoch 10:18-22)

So are the cultic revalorations of the New Year (already developed in late prophecy) clearly apparent here. The “Day of Judgment” is, we have seen, the eschatological aggrandizement of the Day of Yahweh—the god’s cultic epiphany at his New Year procession. While in prophecy, it had been Israel’s salvation from historical enemies that would occur “on that Day,” here we see for the first time the idea that the cosmic enem(y/ies) shall be ultimately defeated on the Day of Yahweh. The cosmic New Year shall destroy all Devils and the evil they caused just as the seasonal New Year had destroyed Mot and the barrenness he had caused. The result is agricultural rejuvenation on a cosmic scale, while the ritual re-purification of the festival is transformed into a complete annulment of sin and defilement. The earth shall be completely cleansed of iniquity. Finally, as Second Zechariah prophesied a whole world celebrating one giant Feast of Tabernacles, so too does the writer of 1 Enoch envision the whole earth worshiping Yahweh.

But this glorious end is still some time away. The Day of Yahweh still lies in the future. Until then, humanity must cope with the evils unleashed by the rebel angels. Indeed, while the Giants themselves were immediately destroyed, their spirits continue to exist upon the earth, attacking and oppressing humans just as the Giants had done:

They will become evil upon the earth and shall be called evil spirits…And these spirits shall rise up against the children of the people and against the women, because they have proceeded forth (from them). (1 Enoch 15:9, 12.)

As with the Devils, these spirits will only be subdued on the “Day of the Great Conclusion” (1 Enoch 16:1-2). Only the cosmic New Year can truly eradicate these oppressive forces from the world.

This account of the Watchers is exemplary of the theological developments taking place during the apocalyptic period. In it, we glimpse one early attempt to flesh out a new spiritual figure, the Devil (or, in this case, Devils), from traditional religious material—specifically the combat myth. Theodicean concerns are clearly one principal catalyst for such innovation, as the ancient workings of rebel angels helped to justify Israel’s suffering with Yahweh’s benevolence and power.[19] Indeed, it is by no means insignificant that the rise of evil spirits—which become prominent in Jewish theology only during the apocalyptic period—is explained qua the theodicy of the cosmic combat myth. Such evil spirits, of course, play a crucial role in the Gospel of Mark.

Another interesting aspect of this story, which we shall see reoccur in various apocalyptic combat myths, is that Yahweh himself does not battle the Devil. Rather, he delegates this “dirty work” to his chief angels, Raphael and Michael. Why the author (or the tradition which he records) opted for this vicarious conflict is not entirely clear. Nevertheless, we sometimes see in various texts of the apocalyptic period a Yahweh who is less the charging warrior god and more the ultimate Judge, sitting at the head of the Divine Council. Indeed, it is the Council itself (made up of those lesser spiritual beings such as the “sons of god”) which preoccupies so much apocalyptic speculation. In this sense then, Yahweh assimilates more into the role of the Canaanite El, while his more active and aggressive doings (one might say his Baal-like characteristics) become the domain of his angelic underlings. In any event, it is clear that the rebel angels are defeated at Yahweh’s command, if not by his own hand. The role of “hero” is thus played by a kind of heavenly coalition.

The Watchers story of 1 Enoch features many elements of the typical combat myth plotline: (1) Lack/Villainy: Semjaza and Azazel’s rebel angels flaunt Yahweh’s reign by transgressing his decrees. (3) Donor/Consultation: The archangels of heaven inform Yahweh of the evil and suffering on earth. (5) Yahweh orders Raphael and Michael to bind the rebel angels and cast them into desert prisons. (10) Victory: The enemies shall be completely destroyed on the Day of Judgment. (11) Enemy Punished: Their bodies shall be cast into the fire. (12) Triumph: As the earth blooms in cosmic abundance, Yahweh will be worshipped by all people.

One might also compare the progression of the story with Hanson’s elements of the “Divine Warrior Hymn”:

6:1-9:11   1) Threat

10:1-16    2) Combat – victory over enemy

10:17        3) Salvation of his people

10:18-22  4) Shalom (return to fertility – new creation)

Thus, while not exhibiting every narrative element of the combat myth pattern, the general progression is there, as are some of its common motifs.

With regard to themes, the agricultural and cultic reflexes are most apparent, while questions of kingship and historical/political associations seem largely lacking. However, the philosophical and theological component is, in many ways, fundamental here: the combat myth is clearly the chief means by which theodicean concerns are developed and Yahweh’s ultimate sovereignty over the world affirmed.

Yahweh vs. Satan/the Serpent (The Life of Adam and Eve)

While 1 Enoch was one early and particularly influential attempt to flesh out the Devil and the origin of evil, it was by no means the last word on the subject. The Devil continued to be developed and reimagined in other texts of the apocalyptic period, some of which present the rebellion theme in a manner that would eventually gain wide popularity (and so more familiar to us today). One such text seems to have been the Life of Adam and Eve, which, composed sometime between 100 BCE and 200 CE,[20] cements the connection between the Devil and the rebellious chaos-enemy from the combat myth.  

Here, the Devil is called by his more familiar name, Satan, while the subject of his rebellion is drawn not from Genesis 6, but Genesis 2: the story of Adam and Eve. Interestingly, the account is written from Satan’s perspective, who narrates his fall to Adam. Satan says that, after God made Adam, he ordered his angels to worship his new creation. When Satan refused, Michael compelled him further:

And Michael asserted, ‘Worship the image of God. But if now you will not worship, the Lord God will be wrathful with you.’ And I said, ‘If he be wrathful with me, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven and will be like the Most High.’

And the Lord God was angry with me and sent me with my angels out from our glory; and because of you we were expelled into this world from our dwellings and have been cast onto earth.[21]

Again, the Devil is cast out with force and thrown to earth—probably a variant of the scattering motif, if now barely perceptible since stripped of its original components. More obvious in this account is the allusion to the cosmic rebel of Isaiah 14, which explicitly links Satan with the mythic enemy of Yahweh. Satan is the cosmic enemy who would depose Yahweh and enthrone himself on the Canaanite storm-god’s mountain as king over the cosmos. Yet this rebellion does not succeed, and Yahweh hurls Satan headlong to the earth. In his analysis, Forsyth observes that “[t]he story is a resurgence of an old Near Eastern myth pattern. It is adapted now by scattered allusions to the Old Testament, but the plot itself has no canonical foundation.”[22] The traditional combat myth informs this composition even more than do canonical biblical texts.

Out of jealousy and revenge, Satan then seeks to attack the man responsible for his expulsion. To do this, he tempts Eve as a serpent in the Garden. With this connection of Satan and serpent, the author links the Genesis account of mankind’s expulsion—part of the traditional theodicy—to the combat myth of the rebel angel. The Devil is now the Serpent, uniting all the serpentine and draconic associations of chaos-monsters with God’s cosmic enemy. The Devil is the Dragon. Forsyth notes:

Here at last the serpent of Genesis is linked to the apocalyptic adversary, and his name is explicitly Satan. …Diabolos [Devil], we have seen, was the word used generally in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew śṭn. By now both words imply the whole apocalyptic combat myth. The tempter is the cosmic adversary.[23]

The Son of Man vs. the Beast of the Sea (Daniel)

Under the Persians (whose defeat of Babylon allowed their new subjects to return to Israel), Jews maintained a complex relationship with their imperial overlords, but certainly not one characterized by intractable hostility. However, after Alexander’s defeat of Persia brought Israel under Greek control, this dynamic fundamentally changes. In 167 BCE, taking political advantage of internecine strife in Jerusalem, the Syrian military under the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes intervened with a harsh hand. Antiochus then set to work on an intense Hellenization campaign, suppressing Jewish customs, forbidding circumcision, and setting up a foreign cult in the Jewish Temple. All of this was anathema to most Jews—even those who had supported various Hellenizing aspects before this intervention. Tensions aroused sentiments of enmity toward their foreign overlords not attested since the Babylonian Exile.

Eventually, these tensions exploded into open revolt and insurrection against their Greek oppressors and, influenced by the theological developments of apocalypticism, many understood the struggle in cosmic terms. The Devil himself was seen as waging war against God’s holy ones via his earthly Greek commander, Antiochus. Like the Chaos and destruction occasioned by Yam or Mot’s ascendency, the persecution owed but to the temporary ascendancy of the Devil over the world. However, God would soon step in as the divine warrior and fight for his oppressed people. The Beast would be destroyed, and justice would return with the final realization of the prophets’ message of the cosmic New Year.

Such thinking lies at the heart of the apocalyptic vision in the seventh chapter of Daniel:

I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great Sea, and four great Beasts came up out of the Sea, different from one another. (Dan 7:2-3)

The beasts are undoubtedly chaos-monsters, arising out of a chaotic and raging Sea.[24] However, as we are later told, they also represent historical kingdoms of the earth (most likely the Neo-Babylonians, the Medes, and the Persians).[25] With this connection, the author continues the ancient tradition of linking historical enemies with mythic chaos-monsters. The last Beast to appear is apparently the worst, described as “terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong” as it had “great iron teeth and was devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping what was left with its feet” (v. 7). This Beast has ten horns, and a small one that rises up with “a mouth speaking arrogantly” (v. 8). With this description, the author paints the final Beast, the Greek kingdom, as the most terrible. The little horn speaking arrogantly is Antiochus Epiphanes himself,[26] and his arrogance echoes the pride of the rebellious chaos-enemies of Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 and 29—texts we have seen apocalyptic writers use to flesh out the identity of the Devil.

                The vision continues:

As I watched,

thrones were set in place,

     and an Ancient of Days took his throne,

His clothing was white as snow,

     and the hair of his head like pure wool;

His throne was fiery flames,

     and its wheels were burning fire.

A stream of fire issued

     and flowed out from his presence.

A thousand thousands served him,

     and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.

The Court sat in judgment,

     and the books were opened. (Dan 7:9-10)

So the Divine Council convenes in judgment, with an enthronement of the head deity, here called the Ancient of Days. Strikingly, the description of this figure lacks precedent in the Hebrew Bible, as nowhere else in canonical texts is Yahweh described as an elderly figure. Indeed, the author seems rather to be drawing upon traditional mythology—probably Hebrew in source but, since lost, recognizable now only through comparisons with Canaanite sources. Thus, in Ugaritic conceptions of the head god, El—the “Father of Years”—is an old man with a gray beard, as mentioned in CTA 3.5.10 and CTA 4.5.65-66.[27] We shall consider these mythological reflexes in more depth momentarily.

Daniel’s vision concludes with the defeat of the Beast:

I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking. And as I watched, the Beast was put to death, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the Beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. As I watched in the night visions,

             I saw one like a son of man

     coming with the clouds of heaven.

             And he came to the Ancient of Days

     and was presented before him.

             To him was given dominion

     and glory and kingship,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

     should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

     that shall not pass away,

and his kingship is one

     that shall never be destroyed. (Dan 7:11-14)

So the chaos-monster is slain, while the slayer himself is introduced in the following lines as the “one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.”[28] The Beast’s body is then destroyed—the usual fate of the defeated chaos-monster—here given over to be burned with fire.

Just who this “son of man” figure is, and the position he serves, has long been the subject of debate. He is undoubtedly a being of some divine status, but the idea of two ruling gods is foreign to the Jewish tradition. This has led commentators such as John J. Collins to posit that “[t]his configuration has no precedent in the biblical tradition. It is quite intelligible, however, against the background of Canaanite mythology.”[29] In the Canaanite configuration, one does find an elderly god who sits as head of the Divine Assembly—El, the “Father of Years”—and a subservient god of the younger generation whose defeat of a chaos-monster initiates the head deity’s conferment of kingship: Baal, the “Rider of the Clouds.” In Daniel 7, this figure most likely symbolizes the archangel Michael: the heavenly representative of the Jewish people.[30] The vision is thus ultimately about Israel’s final defeat of her adversaries, both earthly and cosmic, and the power that will soon be hers with God’s intervention.

Again, however, it is important to stress that the author of Daniel 7 is not drawing from Canaanite mythology, and certainly not from the Ugaritic material specifically. Such dependence would be impossible, as Collins makes clear: “No one would argue that the extant Ugaritic texts were the actual sources on which the author of Daniel 7 drew. There is an interval of more than a thousand years between these texts and the composition of Daniel.”[31] Rather, he asserts what I have been emphasizing throughout this monograph, that “the Canaanite tradition was transmitted down to the first century through sources, whether Jewish or pagan, that are no longer extant.”[32] Indeed, rather than turning to foreign sources, “the author of Daniel was using imagery that had long been at home in the religion of Israel.”[33] Thus, the author of Daniel 7, writing around 165 BCE, gives concrete evidence that the Hebrew combat myth was still flourishing in the apocalyptic period, the myth itself having been transmitted from ancient times through sources now lost to history.

Indeed, it is clear that there was knowledge of such mythic conceptions up to the second century BCE and beyond. Andrew Angel has provided a survey of definite Chaoskampf imagery in use from 515 BCE all the way to 200 CE.[34] We can be fairly certain then that the traditional combat myth continued to flourish in Jewish religion and, though not emphasized in the texts that now comprise most of the Hebrew Bible, had long been kept alive in the tradition. We can assume that the author of Daniel 7 not only had knowledge of configurations that to us now seem more Canaanite than Hebrew, but that he could expect his Jewish audience to understand and appreciate these allusions as well.

Probing further into the principle means of transmission for this mythic pattern, some scholars have stressed the continuity of cult and ritual practice for the combat myth’s persistence. Indeed, the durability of ritual action over time gives this theory some weight, while it also helps to explain the lack of written sources attesting clear transmission. So J. A. Emerton, following Aage Bentzen,[35] posited that the author of Daniel inherited this complex of mythological motifs from Israel’s autumnal New Year festival. He writes:

If Mowinckel’s theory be accepted—and it must suffice here to express the opinion that it is essentially right, however much it may need to be modified in details—then it can hardly be denied that Dan. vii reflects the imagery of the festival. The beasts rising from the sea, the salvation of Israel, and the act of receiving kingship all suggest the complex of ideas of the enthronement festival. Dan. vii is an eschatological form of the situation of that festival. […] Bentzen is no doubt right in connecting Dan. vii and the Israelite enthronement festival, and in thinking that this was the channel by which Canaanite mythological imagery reached the apocalyptic writer.[36]

If such a hypothesis is true in any meaningful way, it would mean that the core of the New Year festival’s mythic underpinnings were alive and well even in the second century BCE. The continuity of Israelite cult would have provided a key means of transmission for the Hebrew combat myth. Indeed, in his consideration of the Enthronement Psalms and cultic continuity, Mowinckel writes:

From the history of form and cult, however, there is nothing to indicate that the so-called Exile marks any important line of distinction. After the restoration, about 520 B.C., the ancient temple service was certainly as far as possible restored with the old forms according to traditions still alive both in the levitical families who had been carried away, and among those left behind who even during the ‘period of exile’ had maintained some kind of cult among the ruins of the Temple (cf. Jer. 41.5).[37]

Likewise, considering the eventual separation of the New Year festival into two separate festivals (that of Yom Kippur and the Feast of Tabernacles), he writes, “This did not make the latter lose its old character [as the New Year enthronement festival], on the contrary it remained still very much alive in the rites as well as psalms till the fall of the Temple, and was even known to the tradition of the Mishna.”[38]

All of this is not to say, of course, that the New Year festival—as it had been celebrated in ancient Judah—continued unchanged into the first century CE. What it does show, however, is that the central myths and functions of that festival were still, at the very least, so much engrained in the cultural memory of Jews of the apocalyptic era that they could be employed in apocalyptic literature for the articulation of eschatological conceptions to an audience likewise familiar with such traditions. Cultural memory of the New Year festival, with so much of its mythic underpinning, had continued on through cult and oral tradition. Apocalyptic writers, just like the later prophets, had these traditions at their disposal to articulate the theological concerns of cosmic restoration.

To return to the text, however, we see that the traditional themes of the combat myth are here present in their apocalyptic transformations. The cultic reflexes are evident in their allusions to the New Year festival. Just as Yahweh was ritually enthroned at the festival, having processed to his temple after defeating the chaos-monsters, so do we see here a scene of enthronement and conferral of kingship after the defeat of the Beast of the Sea. This ties in well of course with the political aspect, as the whole conflict is understood in both historical and cosmic terms: the war between the Jews and the Greeks has its spiritual parallel in the heavens as a battle between the Rider of the Clouds and the Beast of the Sea. The Devil’s kingdom is defeated, and his helpers are deprived of power, while the Kingdom of God is reasserted and the angelic slayer of the Beast given rule. Apart from the usual philosophical significance of Yahweh’s ultimate victory over Chaos, the combat myth in Daniel proves theologically important for developing novel conceptions of the deity and the powers in heaven. We see now the angel, to whom Yahweh had delegated the task of slaying the chaos-enemy, gain particular prominence. In some ways, the emphasis has shifted away from Yahweh entirely, who now, in his more passive El-like position, merely presides over the action. Meanwhile the active Beast-slayer, this angelic “one like a son of man” (who may be Michael) comes to the fore as the more direct savior of Israel. In this way, the ancient Canaanite configuration of the combat myth is crucial for reimagining roles and relationships in the heavenly court. Indeed, this new emphasis on Yahweh’s delegate in the combat becomes crucial for developments of the messiah figure in Jewish apocalypticism, and so ultimately in early Christianity.

Surprisingly little traditional imagery is used in this text. We see no binding, no trampling, no scattering of the body. The battle itself is not narrated, while the punishment of the body is not by dismemberment, but by the increasingly popular apocalyptic motif: destruction by fire.

Despite this dearth of traditional imagery, the story is notable for its strong adherence to the traditional structure of the combat myth. Indeed, until now we have not seen a complete narrative depiction of any Hebrew combat myth, but only its mythic imagery. Here, however, in this apocalyptic vision of Daniel, we see a full-fledged combat myth. With regards to Forsyth’s plot schema, we find the main elements: (1) Lack/Villainy: Terrifying and destructive Beasts arise out of the raging  Sea. The last Beast is the worst, and its little horn wages war against God’s holy ones. (2) Hero emerges/prepares to act:  The Ancient of Days comes into the Court and takes his throne. (3) Donor/Consultation: The Divine Council meets and the books are opened. The Battle (5) itself is not described. (10) Victory: The Beast and its haughty horn are put to death. (11) Enemy Punished: Its body is destroyed and given over to be burned in fire. The other Beasts lose their dominion. (12) Triumph: One like a son of man travels (cf. processes) to the cosmic Court (cf. Temple) and receives kingship from the Ancient of Days. His dominion over the cosmos is assured forever.

Again, however, in this text the “hero” role is not occupied solely by Yahweh—a configuration noted earlier with regard to the 1 Enoch story, where Raphael and Michael are assigned the act of combat. In a similar way, the role of “hero” here seems to be filled by a kind of coalition between the Ancient of Days, the “one like a son of man,” and also the “holy ones of the Most High.” Indeed, the role of the “holy ones of the Most High” should not be overlooked, for they too are instrumental in this coalition. In the angelic explanation of the vision to Daniel, the triumph of the “one like a son of man” corresponds to the triumph of “the holy ones of the Most High”:

Son of Man (vision)

To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

(v. 14)

The Holy Ones (explanation)

The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them.

(v. 26)

When we recognize this, even functions 6-9 are present, for preceding the explanation of the vision, the author recounts:

As I looked, this horn made war with the holy ones and was prevailing over them, until the Ancient of Days came; then judgment was given for the holy ones of the Most High, and the time arrived when the holy ones gained possession of the kingdom. (Dan 7:21-22)

Thus we see (6) Defeat: The holy ones of the Most High fight the horn of the Beast but are not successful. (7) Enemy ascendant: The horn of the Beast is prevailing. (8) The hero recovers when the Ancient of Days comes, and then (9) the battle is rejoined when the son of man slays the Beast. Daniel 7 therefore represents a fairly complete apocalyptic combat myth.

Messiahs vs. Beliar (Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs)

                The Jewish revolt against the Seleucids ultimately proved successful and led to the establishment of an autonomous Jewish kingdom. This was the first time Jews ruled their own land since the Babylonian invasion over four hundred years earlier. However, once again it did not take long before many felt that the imperfections of this new kingdom did not reflect the utopian vision of the cosmic rejuvenation anticipated. Trial and disappointment did not end with the defeat of their Greek overlords, and so in many ways life continued on as usual despite this new autonomy.

                Consequently, apocalyptic expectations and eschatological musings did not disappear, but continued with all the passion and ultra-certainty of the zealous. A composition called the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is but one example of the evolving apocalyptic tradition in the centuries following the Maccabean revolt. While there is considerable debate over the date and provenance of its original composition, many scholars believe it to be a Jewish document written sometime in the last two centuries BCE which eventually saw minor Christian edits and interpolations.[39] As the purported last-words of the twelve sons of Jacob, the text also incorporates apocalyptic-style visions and is exemplary of the general apocalyptic perspective found in many works of this period.

Indeed, the author makes frequent though scattered allusions to the Hebrew Chaoskampf tradition in articulating his vision of the coming end times. These frequent allusions reveal a larger continuity with the combat myth tradition.  We thus encounter the traditional themes in their apocalyptic transformations. Political concerns are pronounced, as the critique of current authorities and ruling powers is expressed in terms of the combat myth. Historical enemies continue to be presented as chaos-monsters and the raging Sea, as in the Testament of Judah:

                                Those who rule shall be like sea monsters,

     swallowing up human beings like fish.

                                Free sons and daughters they shall enslave;

     houses, fields, flocks, goods they shall seize.

                                …Like a whirlwind shall be the false prophets:

     They shall harass the righteous.[40]

Here we find a familiar scene: the sea monster and tempestuous winds stirring up ominous dangers for the righteous. The rapaciousness of the chaos-monster, specifically Death and his insatiable appetite, may also be at work here. Suffering, clearly, is not over, and the righteous will continue to experience the persecutions of those who have acquired their earthly power from the Devil.

One notable aspect though is the inclusion of religious authorities in the camp of the chaos-enemy. False prophets, as well as evil rulers, are all helpers of the Devil. The idea of “the enemy” now includes not just foreign oppressors, but members of the Jewish community itself. The opposing camps are no longer construed along ethnic, political, or broadly religious lines (e.g., Israel against Babylon, our king against their king, Jew against Greek), but actually within Judaism itself. There can be righteous as well as unrighteous Jews. The latter are also classed with the Devil, for they too are deemed oppressive.

                However, this unfortunate situation will change when God finally steps in to right the wrongs of the virtuous. So Asher shares with his children a “prophecy” of Israel’s future troubles and eventual salvation:

For I know that you will sin and be delivered into the hands of your enemies; your land shall be made desolate and your sanctuary wholly polluted. You will be scattered to the four corners of the earth; in the dispersion you shall be regarded as worthless, like useless water, until such time as the Most High visits the earth. [He shall come as a man eating and drinking with human beings,] crushing the Dragon’s head in the water. He will save Israel and all the nations, [God speaking like a man].[41]

Here the final struggle is articulated using the cultic language of the New Year. At the end, the Temple shall be polluted and require re-purification, just as it did during the festival. Most striking in this passage, however, is the language that so clearly parallels God’s primordial battle with the Dragon and his final eschatological battle with evil at the culmination of history. The text recalls Psalm 74:13-14, in which the psalmist reminds God, “You broke the heads of the Dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan.” So will God crush Satan in the final apocalyptic battle. For the apocalypticist, the connection with the Devil and the Dragon of the combat myth is well-cemented. It is now a given that to slay Leviathan is to defeat Satan.

Indeed, apocalyptic warfare is a persistent and important theme in the Testaments. In the text, the Devil is called Beliar,[42] and he oppresses the righteous through the power he has over the world. It is clear that the author envisions two warring camps—indeed, two kingdoms—of divine beings. On the one hand is God and all his host, and in opposition: Beliar and his evil spirits. As in the traditional myth, only one can claim kingship, while the identity of the king determines the nature of existence. Beliar must be defeated if the righteous are to prosper.

In the Testaments this ultimate victory is promised. Though, like the other apocalyptic combats thus far considered, Yahweh is not necessarily the specific agent of Beliar’s defeat. Rather, two messianic figures, one royal and one priestly, shall be delegated the task of battling the Devil. We saw a similar configuration in analysis of Daniel 7. In some ways, the prominence of the son of man figure in that text prefigures the importance that the delegate of Yahweh would play in apocalyptic battle. Indeed, while we may take the bracketed sections in the previous passage as later Christian interpolations, it may be possible that they are indeed original and actually anticipate/inform the Christian conception of a divine-human figure who slays the Beast. In this sense, the ambiguous one like a son of man in Daniel 7, though probably an angel in that composition, is with time developed into an actual son of man figure: a human messiah figure who shall come and crush the heads of the Dragon at the end. However, given how much the identity of the messiah was then in flux, it is extremely difficult to draw any definite lines of dependence.

In any event, the Testaments mention two messianic figures of some sort who will, like the angelic warriors of the other apocalyptic combats, defeat the Devil and usher in the cosmic rejuvenation:

And there shall arise for you from the tribe of Judah and (the tribe of) Levi

       the Lord’s salvation.

He will make war against Beliar;

He will grant the vengeance of victory as our goal.

And he shall take from Beliar the captives, the souls of the saints;

And he shall turn the hearts of the disobedient ones to the Lord,

And grant eternal peace to those who call upon him.

And the saints shall refresh themselves in Eden;

The righteous shall rejoice in the New Jerusalem,

Which shall be eternally for the glorification of God.[43]

The messiah(s) shall battle the Devil and liberate those he has taken captive. This victory shall usher in a New Eden and New Jerusalem—apocalyptic reflexes of the original New Year rejuvenation. The defeat of the Devil shall, like the defeat of the chaos-monsters, return the world to its original state of purity.

As in the Isaianic Apocalypse and the Book of Daniel, this cosmic rejuvenation is articulated specifically as apocalyptic resurrection in the Testament of Judah 25:3-4a:

                And you shall be one people of the Lord, with one language.

                 There shall be no more Beliar’s spirit of error, because he will be thrown

       into eternal fire.

                 And those who died in sorrow shall be raised in joy…

With the victory of these messianic figures, the Devil shall be destroyed and the earth consequently renewed to a sinless state (here expressed as a pre-Babel world). The Chaos-enemy slain, the dead shall rise. Mot shall have no more dominion.

As we just saw, this battle with Beliar will bring about the liberation of Beliar’s “captives.” These are the  aichmalōsia. Derived from aichmē “spear” and halōsis “conquest,” the word literally suggesting one taken captive by the spear. The captives of Beliar are thus like prisoners of war taken amidst the cosmic conflict. The Testament of Dan 4:7 elucidates the identity of such captives, noting that “when the soul is continually perturbed, the Lord withdraws from it and Beliar rules it.” Thus, the prisoners over whom Beliar rules are those long-perturbed souls whom his spirit possesses. Since common belief at the time (evidenced in 1 Enoch as well as such texts as Jubilees 10:7-12) also understood human illness as corruption by evil spirits, this group includes the sick as well. The “captives of Beliar” are thus spirit-possessed and diseased persons. At the end, on the Day of Yahweh, the divine warrior is expected to come and liberate these prisoners from the Devil. So we read in the Testament of Zebulun 9:8:

And thereafter the Lord himself will arise upon you, the light of righteousness with healing in his wings. He will liberate every captive of the sons of men from Beliar, and every spirit of error will be trampled down.

The captives of Beliar will be healed by the Lord, and thereby set free from Satan’s rule—liberated, one might say, from his oppressive kingdom. Then those evil spirits at fault will meet the typical fate of the chaos-monster: they will be trampled.[44]

As I noted at the outset of this chapter, healing is one important apocalyptic reflex of the combat myth. Originally, healing was an important aspect of the New Year festival, as New Year purifications meant a return to the original, pure time of creation—a time without tint, evil, or sickness.  In in apocalyptic transformations of the combat myth, however, these rites of purification are eschatologized to a full-scale purification of the world and Yahweh’s people. For this reason, purification and healing are essentially connected—an association already developed in proto-apocalyptic texts. So in Isaiah 35:5, we read that, at the cosmic New Year, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” There can be no sickness or ill health when the cosmic New Year has revitalized all things. Even so, once the messiah has defeated the Devil, all shall be made pure and healthy again.

One passage from the Testament of Levi combines many of these themes and images:

And [the messiah] shall open the Gates of Paradise;

He shall remove the Sword that has threatened since Adam,

And he will grant to his saints to eat of the Tree of Life.

The Spirit of Holiness shall fall upon them.

And Beliar shall be bound by him.

And he shall grant to his children the authority to trample on wicked

       spirits.[45]

Such passages evince a sustained articulation of the final eschatological battle in terms of the combat myth. Here we find the agricultural reflex of the New Eden, as well as the traditional binding and trampling motifs applied to the Devil and his evil spirit helpers. Though scattered throughout the Testaments, these intimations of the eschatological conflict and the coming cosmic New Year are well at home in the apocalyptic worldview. They show clearly how the revalorations of the combat myth and its cultic associations, begun in late prophecy, emphatically continued in the apocalyptic period.

Yahweh vs. Belial (Qumran)

The apocalyptic combat myth also permeates a great deal of the literature which comes to us from the community at Qumran. Here too, though, it is used sporadically, with no full-fledged narrative of battle. Nevertheless, themes and imagery abound, and this survey would certainly be incomplete without at least a cursory look at the apocalyptic combat myth in the texts from Qumran. The following are broadly representative of its application in those diverse texts.

As an ultra-conservative sectarian group whose retreat to monastic living seems to have been occasioned by a sharp break with the traditional religious authorities, it is not surprising that we see a strong prominence in the political reflex of the combat myth. The traditional religious authorities are undoubtedly under the sway of the Devil (usually called Belial in the Qumran literature). I first noted this growing tendency to associate even fellow Jews with Satan in my consideration of the Testaments. For the ultra-righteous sectarians of Qumran, this association is commonplace. For this reason, all worldly authorities—religious and political—are deemed wicked, and represented as chaos-monsters.

For example, one hymn includes a prayer lamenting the power of the Devil and his wicked helpers:

I have become a taunt-song for the rebellious, and the assembly of the wicked have stormed against me. They roar like a gale on the seas, when their waves churn, they cast up slime and mud…

Brutal men seek my soul, while I hold fast to your covenant. They are the fraudulent council for the congregation of Belial, they do not know that my office is from You…

Like the roar of many Waters is the uproar of their voice; a cloudburst and a downpour to destroy many. As catapults (?), wickedness and fraud burst out when their waves pile up.[46]

So are the wicked in power compared to the raging chaos-waters. As the floods lifted up their voice in challenge of Yahweh, so here do the wicked of Belial roar and lift up their voice.

Still, this dire situation will not last much longer. As we should well expect by now, the connection of the wicked oppressor with the chaos-monster sets up the fundamental expectation of the apocalyptic combat myth: battle and victory. “For all their wisdom is swallowed up by the roar of the seas,” reads another text, “when the ocean depths boil over the springs of water, and they are tossed up, Sh[eo]l [and Abaddon] shall open…”[47] The text concludes with a climax of all-out apocalyptic war:

The torrents of Belial burst through into Abaddon, and the plotters from the deep make an uproar with the noise of those who belch forth slime. The earth shouts out, because of the disaster which comes about in the world, and all its plotters scream. All who are upon it behave as if mad, and they melt away in the gr[ea]t disaster. For God thunders with the roar of His strength and His holy dwelling roars forth in His glorious truth. Then the heavenly hosts shall raise their voice and the everlasting foundations shall melt and quake. The war of the heroes of heaven shall spread over the world and shall not return until an annihilation that has been determined from eternity is completed. Nothing like this has ever occurred.[48]

Thus, as in the psalms of the New Year festival, the raging waters (i.e., the forces of the Devil) lift up their voice to plunge the world into Chaos. But Yahweh thunders his own roar, the rebuke of his mighty voice. Here this is even matched by the roar of the heavenly hosts (another instance of a divine coalition), which cause the foundations of the world to tremble and melt away as apocalyptic battle rages over the entire world. Clearly, the language of the ancient combat myth is central to these apocalyptic conceptions. The ancient myth of storm-god versus sea monster has, through its dramatic apocalyptic revaloration, become a battle of Yahweh and his angelic army against the Devil and his demonic helpers.

Feast of the Chaos-Monsters (4 Ezra and 2 Baruch)

In apocalyptic revalorations of the combat myth, the festival itself is aggrandized to a cosmic celebration of Yahweh’s victory over the Devil. In this sense, the Feast of Tabernacles itself becomes the cosmic eschatological banquet, at which Yahweh’s reasserted kingship is gloriously praised and the cosmic rejuvenation of the earth indulged in. The chaos-monsters have been defeated and the righteous can now rejoice.

Only with this appreciation of the fundamental relationship between the ancient Hebrew combat myth and the apocalyptic concept of the cosmic New Year festival can we understand an otherwise enigmatic idea in some apocalyptic texts. For we read that, after the defeat of the Devil, the chaos-monsters Leviathan and Behemoth will be served as food for the righteous at the messianic banquet. Whether or not this idea goes back to any ancient myth, available to apocalyptic writers but now lost to us, we cannot know. The idea that celebrants of the original New Year festival would eat the body of the chaos-monster does not appear in any of the texts we now possess, which would suggest that the idea is a unique innovation of the apocalyptic period. However, on closer inspection, I think we can posit that this idea has ancient roots. Indeed, it seems to have been, in a basic sense, a recurrent aspect of the combat myth genre: we have seen it in the scattering motif.

In the ancient Near Eastern combat myths, scattering the dead body of the defeated chaos-monster is often linked to sustenance. Ninurta is said to have taken the slain body of the Azag demon and “scattered it over the mountain” and “strewed it like flour.”[49] Similarly, when Anat attacks Mot, she splits his body up and plants him like seed; his limbs are eaten by birds. Such traditions were clearly present in the Hebrew combat myth as well. So Psalm 74, for example, reads: “You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the people in the wilderness.” The basic idea that the chaos-monsters serve as sustenance is later referenced in Ezekiel 32:2-4, where the Egyptian pharaoh—in the form of a sea dragon—is caught by Yahweh and thrown into the open to be the food for birds and wild animals. All of this suggests a recurrent topos of the combat myth: the defeated chaos-monster is divided, its body serving as nourishment in a once-barren place.

In the apocalyptic combat myth, this topos is continued and creatively reimagined. Here, the chaos-monsters become nourishment for the righteous at the cosmic New Year. We find the idea expressed in 4 Ezra 6:49-52, written at the turn of the first and second centuries CE:[50]

Then you kept in existence two living creatures; the name of one you called Behemoth and the name of the other Leviathan. And you separated one from the other, for the seventh part where the water had been gathered together could not hold them both. And you gave Behemoth one of the parts which had been dried up on the third day, to live in it, where there are a thousand mountains; but to Leviathan you have the seventh part, the watery part; and you have kept them to be eaten by whom you wish, and when you wish.

That these chaos-monsters will be eaten specifically at the end-times is made explicit in the early second-century CE book 2 Baruch 29:4:[51]

And it will happen that when all that which should come to pass in these parts has been accomplished, the Anointed One will begin to be revealed. And Behemoth will reveal itself from its place, and Leviathan will come from the sea, the two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation and which I shall have kept until that time. And they will be nourishment for all who are left.

The relationship of the chaos-monsters to Yahweh and the righteous is rather unclear in both of these passages. In some senses, they seem to be acting more in Yahweh’s service than as his enemy. Perhaps, as the Devil came to supercede the chaos-monsters proper as enemy of Yahweh, their role changed into one of passive subservience. On the other hand, they may retain their adversarial quality here, but, since subdued, are at Yahweh’s will to do with them as he pleases (and, indeed, given over to be eaten does not necessarily evince a close relationship with the god). Indeed, we see the Sea submissive to Yahweh’s will even in Exodus 15. In any case, we see continuity with the ancient combat myth tradition. In the apocalyptic transformation of the myth, the bodies of the chaos-monsters shall be consumed at the eschatological banquet. Their bodies, one can presume, shall be divided then like any meat from a carcass, and provided as nourishment to the righteous.

Christ vs. the Devil and Death (NT: Epistles)

By the first century CE, Jewish theology had seen dramatic transformations, the most important of which was the general acceptance of a cosmic evil figure who stood in opposition to Yahweh. The Devil—Satan, the ancient serpent—was in control of the world through his puppet gentile nations, and only God’s direct intervention at the end of days could set things right. Indeed, Judaism had grown very concerned with eschatological matters, and by the first century apocalypticism seems to have been thoroughly entrenched in its popular worldview.

Given this rise of apocalyptic thought in Second Temple Judaism, it is hardly surprising that the early Christian church, which grew out of first century Judaism, was likewise steeped in apocalyptic thinking. So Dale C. Allison observes:

The apocalyptic view of things was not just held by many Jews in general; it was also held by many of the first Christians in particular. Passages from a wide variety of sources leave little doubt that many early followers of Jesus thought that the eschatological climax was approaching.[52]

Indeed, there is a great deal of continuity between the perspectives of the New Testament and the apocalyptic worldview found in the pseudepigrapha. In fact, many New Testament authors evince familiarity with those works. The author of Jude, for example, cites 1 Enoch 1:9 in his epistle (1:14-16), and elsewhere alludes to the rebellious Watcher angels. So he writes, presumably accepting that apocalyptic narrative:

And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, [God] has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day. (Jude 1:6)

Like apocalyptic authors before them, writers of the New Testament understood their historical circumstances as part of a cosmic war—a battle between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, God and Satan. Like the persecuted sectarian community at Qumran, the political themes of the combat myth were very salient for persecuted Christians in the first century. The challenges and crises of the early church were thus envisioned and communicated in terms of cosmic warfare.

Ephesians 6:11-12 reads:

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the Rulers, against the Authorities, against the cosmic Powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

This apocalyptic idea that the workings of both political and religious authorities were orchestrated by the Devil is prevalent in Pauline writings. Such thinking is explicit when Paul writes to the Corinthians about the cosmic battle lines:

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Beliar? (2 Cor 6:14-15)

The strict apocalyptic dualism is evident, and articulated in terminology quite at home in apocalyptic thinking. Light and Darkness were the principle designations used by the community at Qumran to refer to the righteous elect and the wicked helpers of the Devil. Interesting here as well is Paul’s use of the name Beliar for the cosmic adversary—a common name for Satan in the intertestamental writings. In fact, Paul may be drawing directly from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The Testament of Levi 19:1 reads, “Choose for yourselves light or darkness, the Law of the Lord or the works of Beliar.” The language and dichotomies are common to both.[53] Elsewhere, in Romans 8:38, he refers to “angels,” and supernatural “Rulers” and “Powers” that might try to separate the saints from God. The Devil is in control of the world through these and other forces, and one must take one’s stand in one camp or the other.

Of critical importance for the present investigation, though, is the fact that Paul and other early Christians were unique in understanding the ministry of Jesus as a battle with these demonic forces—one in which Jesus proved victorious. Christianity distinguishes itself from other forms of Jewish apocalypticism in the assertion that Jesus of Nazareth was the hoped-for messiah-figure who would come and battle the Devil at the end of time. Indeed, as a movement grown out of Jewish apocalypticism, Christianity had at its core the belief that Jesus had in fact fulfilled the role of divine warrior through his ministry. Through his ministry, death, and resurrection, Jesus performed the role of the long-awaited delegate of Yahweh: the messiah-figure who would come to crush the heads of the Dragon in the Sea, and swallow up Death forever. For the early Christians, Jesus was the apocalyptic divine warrior.

Thus Colossians 2:1 describes the salvific work of Jesus in terms of a victorious general, stating, “He disarmed the Rulers and Authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.” Boyd notes that this final phrase (thriambeusas autous en autō) is “a likely reference to a military general leading his captives through the streets of his kingdom to display his victory over the vanquished army.”[54] Jesus is thus the victorious divine warrior in the eschatological battle, vanquishing the Satanic principalities who control the world—called the “Rulers and Authorities in the heavenly places” in Ephesians 3:10—and even leading them in a triumphal victory procession.[55] Such an image may indeed allude to the procession of the victorious divine warrior at the cosmic New Year festival.

Elsewhere, the language of the Chaoskampf myth is clearly employed by Paul to present Jesus as the victorious divine warrior of the apocalyptic combat myth. So 1 Corinthians 15:24:

Then comes the end, when [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every Ruler and every Authority and Power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is Death.

Theodore Hiebert writes: “Lying behind this Pauline perspective is the apocalyptic idea that the world is caught in a struggle between divine and diabolical forces which will one day be resolved by the conquest of Chaos and death.”[56] Though Christ was indeed victorious over the forces of the Devil during his earthly ministry, the final culmination of his rule has not yet taken place. At the ultimate end, however, Christ will completely and finally destroy these evil supernatural rulers, trampling them under his feet in true divine warrior fashion. Elsewhere, he makes a similar allusion to the apocalyptic combat myth, writing, “The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20), thereby directly linking the Devil with the trampled chaos-monsters from Hebrew tradition.

Even Death’s epithet, “the last enemy,” seems to recall the progression of the traditional myth: first the Dragon is trampled, then comes the defeat of Death. So too in the Christian variant of the apocalyptic combat myth: first Jesus conquers the Devil and his various helpers, then he defeats Death. So does ancient Near Eastern myth become budding Christian dogma.

The theme of kingship and its transference expectedly follows the defeat of the chaos-monsters. However, the handing over of kingship to the Father seems to be an interesting reversal of the configuration presented in Daniel 7, where the older deity confers kingship on the younger “son of man.” In an important sense, the growing dominance of the delegate of Yahweh (first encountered in 1 Enoch, but continued with increasing emphasis on the lesser messianic figure in Daniel 7 and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) reaches its peak in Christian configurations of the myth. Indeed, Jesus comes to be accepted as completely co-equal with Yahweh in Christian thinking. Here, we glimpse the greatest exaltation of the delegate divine warrior: it is he who transfers kingship onto Yahweh. With the rise of Christianity, the figure delegated by Yahweh to fight the Devil and his chaos-monsters becomes assimilated to and in some senses supersedes Yahweh with the person of Jesus.

Christ vs. the Dragon and Death (NT: Revelation)

Revealing as these passages are, nowhere is the apocalyptic transformation of the combat myth so vividly and directly employed as in the only full-fledged apocalypse in the New Testament, the Book of Revelation. This composition has much in common with the other apocalyptic literature we have seen, drawing liberally from older visionary texts (especially the Book of Daniel) and ancient mythic patterns. In the Christian canon, notes Forsyth, it is the work “that most clearly establishes [Satan’s] continuity with the cosmic adversary of the Near East.”[57]

The entire work is in fact so rich with allusions to the Chaoskampf tradition, time and space do not allow for a full analysis. Indeed, one notable feature of Revelation is its comprehensive inclusion of virtually every incarnation of the chaos-enemy. Here we encounter the Dragon, his helper Beasts (including both Leviathan and Behemoth), the political helpers of the chaos-monster, the raging Sea, and Death/Sheol/Abaddon. It is as though the author were eager to include every representation of the chaos-monster, each one singularized and apocalyptically aggrandized in order to augment the finality of their destruction. While this comprehensive quality shall prove difficult to cover, hopefully a cursory look at selected passages  should suffice for an appreciation of how the early Christian church understood and articulated the ministry of Jesus by means of the apocalyptic combat myth.

In the twelfth chapter, visions of a dragon’s attack on a woman in labor are interwoven with a cosmic war in heaven. Beginning with the first vision, we read:

A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birthpangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red Dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. (12:1-4a)

The ten horns of the Dragon in this vision recall those of the chaos-monster in Daniel 7:7, while the sweeping down a third of the stars probably alludes to the fall of rebellious angels (such as the Watchers in 1 Enoch). That the dragon is said to have seven heads—a detail found here and of the “beast rising out of the Sea” in 13:1—is truly remarkable. In the extant Hebrew material, the great chaos-monster Leviathan is said to have multiple heads, but the texts never state exactly how many.[58] The Ugaritic combat myths, however, explicitly enumerate seven heads for the chaos-monster Litan[59]—that Ugaritic ancestor of the Hebrew Leviathan.[60] With this detail, the author evinces familiarity with archaic traditions that, though not preserved in the Hebrew Bible, must have continued into the first century CE and beyond as part of a more extensive mythology.[61] Indeed, like the author of Daniel, the apocalypticist may have received this ancient information via cultic traditions for, as we shall see, he also employs the imagery of the ancient New Year festival.

Following a thwarted attack by the Dragon on the woman and her child, full-blown apocalyptic battle erupts in heaven. We read:

And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon. The Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great Dragon was thrown down, that ancient Serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (12:7-9)

Here—as in 1 Enoch and, presumably, Daniel 7—it is the archangel Michael who fights the chaos-monster as the delegate of Yahweh. The chaos-monster is explicitly called the Devil and Satan here, who is “the ancient serpent” from Isaiah 27:1 (which originally referred to Leviathan), or, given the theological developments linking the Devil with the tempter in the Garden, Genesis 2.

However, though Michael and the heavenly host are the most immediate agents responsible for the Dragon’s expulsion from heaven, we learn the ultimate cause immediately afterwards:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his messiah, for the Accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of Death.

Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the Devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (12:10-12)

It was thus ultimately the sacrificial death of Jesus that caused the Dragon’s defeat. Indeed, this is the true and most basic opposition in Revelation’s apocalyptic combat myth. Though Michael was the immediate heavenly delegate of Yahweh to battle the Devil, it was actually Jesus who was the essential messianic figure. Jesus is the hero whose salvific work on earth began the downfall of Satan. Such was the belief of the early Christians, and such, we shall see, was the message of another crucial, thoroughly-apocalyptic text from the early church: the Gospel of Mark.

However, by this point in the narration the Dragon has not been defeated—only expelled from heaven. Now on the earth, the Dragon’s power actually increases. He seeks to attack the mother of the child again, but she is given eagle’s wings and again flies away to the wilderness. To stop her, the Dragon spits water like a river out of his mouth. But “the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth” (12:16). So the Dragon attempts to use the destructive Waters as a weapon. Thwarted, the Dragon skulks away to war further against the righteous.[62]

At the opening of the thirteenth chapter, he takes his stand on the shore of the Sea:

And I saw a Beast (thērion) rising out of the Sea having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names. And the Beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the Dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound had been healed. In amazement the whole earth followed the Beast. They worshiped the Dragon, for he had given his authority to the Beast, and they worshiped the Beast, saying, “Who is like the Beast, and who can fight against it?” (13:1-4)

So Leviathan, the Beast of the Sea with his traditional seven heads, appears. With his entry, the political theme of the combat myth becomes particularly pronounced, as here the Beast symbolizes Rome: the oppressive historical power now persecuting the righteous. This association is made clear when, in 17:9, its seven heads are connected with the seven hills of Rome.[63] That the Beast (Rome) gets its power directly from the Dragon (Satan) is a hallmark of apocalypticism: political authorities derive their power from the Devil, the current king over the earth. This arrangement is presented in Revelation as a direct allusion to the ancient combat myth: Yam is Satan, and his Leviathan, Rome. The political authorities are Satan’s helpers just as Leviathan was Sea’s helper.

Thus, though the salvific work of Jesus has ousted the Dragon from heaven, the Dragon now reigns on earth via his political helper, the Roman Empire. Jesus’ sacrificial death, though crucial to the apocalyptic battle, has at least temporarily led to the ascendency of the Dragon and his helpers on earth. With this rise of the Devil and his associate Beast, the righteous are defeated, and Satan becomes king over the cosmos:

The Beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation… (13:5-7)

Indeed, the Beast of the Sea is soon aided by another oppressor, the Beast of the Earth: Leviathan is thus joined by Behemoth.[64] However, recalling Wakeman’s analysis, we may also see in this earth monster the figure of Death as chaos-enemy. If so, two of the principal enemies from the ancient combat myth are present: Leviathan and Mot.[65] These two continue to oppress and defeat the righteous, as tremendous suffering and calamity overtake the world. Indeed, the cosmos has descended into utter Chaos.

However, as we should expect, this is the very cue for the divine warrior and the rejoinder of battle. So, in chapter fourteen, we read:

Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. (14:1-3a)

Jesus, as the Lamb, is seen on the holy mountain in a scene whose imagery recalls the cosmic New Year festival. So a mighty voice  rumbles like thunder, while the image of harpists around the throne is invoked, reminiscent of the singers and harpists at the enthronement of the ark at the New Year festival.

These connections with the ancient harvest festival are continued a few verses later:

Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand! Another angel came out of the Temple, calling with a loud voice to the one who sat on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is fully ripe!” So the one who sat on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped. (14:14-16)

So is the end of the world related to the end of the agricultural year. To usher in the New Year, Jesus—as the “one like a son of man” figure from Daniel 7, the slayer of the Beast—comes as the storm-god rider of the clouds and himself reaps the harvest of earth. The call of the angel in the Temple may allude to the antiphonal psalms of the New Year enthronement, as priests of the Temple would call out to celebrants of the festival bearing the ark of Yahweh.

The succeeding chapters, fifteen through eighteen, then narrate the judgment meted out by Yahweh upon the followers of the Beast. But Satan’s kingdom remains unshaken, and sends out demons to assemble a vast army for the final apocalyptic battle at Mount Meggido. So the chaos-monsters continue their oppressive reign until the climactic conclusion in chapter nineteen, when the resurrected Jesus himself finally rides forth as the dreadful divine warrior to slay the Beasts:

Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’ (19:11-16)

So Jesus emerges as the warrior, flanked by his heavenly host and armed with a sword to battle the Beasts. Immediately after this, the apocalyptist writes:

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in mid-heaven, ‘Come, gather for the Great Supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of the mighty, the flesh of horses and their riders—flesh of all, both free and slave, both small and great.’ (19:17-18)

So we reencounter the cultic festival, eschatologized as the cosmic New Year banquet. The helpers of the Beasts—not as chaos-monsters but rather as political allies: kings and authorities—serve as food for wild animals. That the angel calls specifically to the birds is reminiscent of the ancient Canaanite motif in which Anat allows the birds to eat the limbs of the defeated Mot, later attested in the Hebrew tradition by Ezekiel 32:4.

Finally, the principal helper of the Dragon, the demonic Beast Leviathan, is slain by Jesus:

Then I saw the Beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the Rider on the Horse and against his army. And the Beast was captured, and with it the false prophet… These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were killed by the sword of the Rider on the Horse, the sword that came from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh. (19:19-21)

So the Beast is captured, or “arrested” as the word epiasthē might be translated, which may allude to the traditional binding motif. Its body is then destroyed by fire, while the helpers of the Beast are likewise punished, their corpses eaten by birds in a variant of the scattering motif. The mention of Jesus’ sword may recall Isaiah 27:1, which reads: “On that Day, Yahweh with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the Dragon that is in the sea.” Jesus thus fulfills the role of Yahweh himself, serving as the divine warrior on the Day of Yahweh, the cosmic New Year.

Next, with the helpers of the Dragon defeated, the Dragon himself is dealt with:

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless Pit and a great chain. He seized the Dragon, that ancient Serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the Pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. (20:1-3)

Here, the binding motif is far more explicit, as the Devil is once again emphatically identified with the Dragon, the ancient Serpent of the traditional combat myth. He is cast into the Pit, just as the cosmic rebel was, his body eventually destroyed by fire.

Having thus defeated the helper Beasts and the Dragon, Jesus then moves to defeat Death—thereby mirroring the progression of the ancient myth:

And the Sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the Sea was no more. (20:14-21:1)

One striking aspect of this passage is the mention of “Death and Hades,” since the Greek “Hades” usually translated the Hebrew “Sheol”—another name, as we saw earlier, for the Death god himself. Conceptually then, it is not two different entities cast into the fire here, but one: the old enemy from the combat myth, Mot/Sheol, referenced in poetic parallelism just as they often are in the Hebrew literature.[66] Coupling this with Forsyth’s assertion that “[t]he sea here is not the ordinary sea that sailors cross; it is the mythological enemy, the Ugaritic Yamm blended with the hostile Red Sea of the Exodus,”[67] we see that both of the traditional forces of Chaos are slain here. This is final defeat of Sea and Death/Hades (that is, Yam and Mot/Sheol). The order of the defeat here (Sea and then Death), and in the narrative more broadly (Beasts, Dragon, Death), matches the progression of the traditional combat myth. Jesus, like Baal and Yahweh, first defeats the helper monsters (Leviathan/Behemoth), then the Dragon (Yam), then Death (Mot).[68]

As in the traditional combat myth, these victories usher in the cosmic New Year and the return to original purity. Thus a new heaven and a new earth are born. The dead are resurrected, and a new, re-purified world comes into being. With this great transformation comes the typical conclusion to the combat myth pattern: the victorious divine warrior can receive kingship over the cosmos. So both Yahweh and Jesus are enthroned to great praise, their kingship finally assured after slaying the chaos-monsters.

As this analysis makes clear (and, to be sure, more evidence could be presented, since this hardly exhausts the Chaoskampf material in Revelation), the combat myth was a crucial framework through which early Christians understood and articulated Jesus’ ministry. Ancient mythic material appear in this first century apocalypse to be creatively revalorized into a distinctly Christian vision. Jesus is now the divine warrior, the storm-god of the ancient myth. It is his sacrificial death which expels Satan from heaven. It is his return as the resurrected rider which inaugurates the final defeat of Sea, Dragon, and Death.

We have undoubtedly seen the thematic reflexes of the apocalyptic combat myth: agricultural (e.g., resurrection), cultic (e.g., enthronement), political (e.g., Rome as Beast), and philosophical and theological (e.g., Jesus co-equal with Yahweh). So too are the mighty voice, binding, and scattering motifs employed.

The full narrative trajectory of Revelation is complex and convoluted, rendering any easy plot schematization impossible. Nevertheless, stepping back (quite a bit) and risking over-simplification, one might present the general outline as follows:  1) Lack/Villainy: The Dragon makes war on the righteous. 2) Hero emerges/prepares to act: A coalition of Yahweh, his angels, Jesus and his faithful fulfill the hero role. 3) Donor/Consultation: The sacrificial death of Jesus is the means by which the Dragon is cast out of heaven. 5) Battle: Michael and the angels battle the Dragon in heaven. 6) Defeat: The “defeat” of Jesus and his death on the cross precipitate the Dragon’s fall from heaven. 7) Enemy ascendant: Thrown to earth, the Dragon, now with helper Beasts and kings of the earth, conquer the righteous. 8) Hero recovers: The resurrected Jesus appears, first as the rider of the clouds to reap earth’s harvest, then on his horse, charging forth with his heavenly army. 9) Battle rejoined: Jesus and his army battle the Beast and the kings of earth. 10) Victory: The Beasts are slain; the Dragon is bound; Death and Sea give up their captives. 11) Enemy punished: The bodies of the Beasts, the Dragon, and Death are destroyed by fire; the bodies of the Beast’s helpers are feasted upon by birds; the Sea is destroyed. 12) Triumph: In celebration at the cosmic New Year, Yahweh and Jesus take their thrones, praised for their assured kingship over the cosmos.

Summary

Clearly the combat myth was a crucial mythic genre in the ancient Near East. Fundamentally a myth about order, it offered to many people of antiquity a philosophically optimistic framework for understanding the agricultural, cultic, and political realities of their time. Telling of the storm-god’s victory over the draconic forces of Chaos and destruction, the myth assured that the god of fertility, order, and justice was in charge—he was king. In addition to such fundamental themes, these myths also employed certain generic motifs, including the storm-god’s mighty voice, and the binding, trampling, and dividing/scattering of the defeated chaos-monster’s body. It also followed a basic plot progression, whose abstraction by Forsyth I have employed throughout my analysis.

In the ancient Near East, these combat myths were usually a central liturgical aspect in a New Year festival. Celebrating the return of fertility after the barren season, the festival included a recitation or reenactment of the mythic narrative as an efficacious ritual to usher in the New Year. Also central to such New Year festivals was the procession of the storm-god’s cultic idol, at which time the idol was removed from its temple and brought to a suburban cult shrine. With the idol removed, the temple of the storm-god was then re-purified as the ritual impurities accumulated throughout the year were cleansed. This done, the god’s idol was then carried in a glorious procession from the sacred site back to his temple, accompanied by music and festal calls along the way. Since most of the year the idol remained unseen within the temple, this was the great epiphany of the god, the time when his people could look on his sacred glory. The idol of the god, having processed back to his temple along the city’s via sacra—the fixed processional road—was then reinstalled in his shrine. In Ugarit, and perhaps in other kingdoms, this probably took the form of a ritual enthronement of the deity.

Like other ancient Near Eastern peoples, the ancient Israelites had their own combat myth traditions. By comparing extant Hebrew texts with other ancient Near Eastern mytho-cultic traditions, it is possible to glean a relatively clear picture of this ancient Hebrew myth. In it, Yahweh has as his enemy primarily the raging Sea and its associate Dragon, Leviathan/Rahab. Though Sea’s waters rage and roar against him, Yahweh always proves mightier. Riding in upon the clouds and gales, he terrorizes the waters into submission by his thunderous rebuke: the Hebrew variant of the god’s mighty voice. He tramples upon the back of Sea, and divides it in two, restoring the rebellious waters to their rightful place. As for Sea’s Dragon, he binds it, specifically with a muzzle, and subdues the beast. Finally, though less prevalent in the Hebrew texts, it seems that, like Baal, Yahweh also battled Death after defeating the Sea and its Dragon. Death, with its rapacious appetite, may also have been conceived of as a dragon/beast and was the last enemy to be defeated by Yahweh.

In ancient Israel, these victories were also celebrated at a New Year festival: the harvest Feast of Tabernacles. At this festival, Yahweh’s deeds of defeating the forces of Chaos were likewise recalled. Serving as the symbol of the god, the ark was removed from the Temple and placed in the House of Obed-Edom while the Temple was cleansed of the year’s impurities. Then the ark was led in a celebratory procession back to the Temple, appearing before all the people. This was the god’s chief cultic epiphany, the Day of Yahweh. Music and singing accompanied the procession as it made its way from the House of Obed-Edom back up to the Temple, traveling upon the Sacred Way: Israel’s festal via sacra. All the while, clearing the Way for the ark and proclaiming Yahweh’s “good news” of victory over the enemy, went the processional herald/messenger (probably the son(s) of the high priest). Finally, arriving through the eastern gate, the ark was reinstalled in a ritual enthronement of the deity.

The Hebrew combat myth and its associated festival clearly had a primary place in ancient Israelite religion. Many Psalms, presumably liturgical texts from the festival, describe Yahweh’s battle with the chaos-monsters, his victorious procession, and his enthronement. Even in prophetic circles at odds with the Jerusalem court and cult, the myth was popular. However, because of the different uses to which they put the myth—primarily as metaphorical allusion—its presence is more subtle in prophetic texts.

After the Babylonian invasion destroyed the Temple and the monarchy, the combat myth and its cultic celebration continued on as potent conceptions in Israelite religion. Prophets in exile drew from the mytho-cultic complex for its powerful images to articulate their hopes for restoration.  Indeed, much of the message of Deutero-Isaiah was predicated on metaphorical application of the myth to Israel’s political situation. So the prophet imagines Babylon as the historical chaos-enemy whom Yahweh would  soon slay. Then a new via sacra, a processional way running from Babylon to Zion, would appear, on which the exiles could return with singing and dancing as their god once again became their king. Truly cosmic rejuvenation would then occur, as the great defeat of the chaos-forces would usher in a kind of Second Eden.

However, after the return, continued frustrations, trials, and disappointments led many to feel that such prophetic messages remained unfulfilled. Consequently, fervent hope for restoration continued, becoming increasingly lofty and separated from reality in its expression. So in Zechariah, for example, Yahweh’s salvation is articulated as the New Year festival’s Day of Yahweh with cosmic dimensions. The divine warrior returns, standing upon the Mount of Olives as it splits in two and forms a road to save the righteous. The Lord then swoops into the city of Jerusalem, purifying it of evil forces, and inaugurates a utopian world where all the nations come up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

This tendency of cosmic projection of the combat myth and its festival was characteristic of late prophecy and proto-apocalyptic, culminating with the rise of full-blown apocalypticism. For this reason, the combat myth became central to apocalyptic ideas about Yahweh’s impending salvation, and the ultimate evil which necessitated it. This source of evil was the Devil, the rebel of the combat myth who, with everything else, became cosmically aggrandized. In essence, he was Leviathan, writ large. The Day would come, however, when Yahweh would appear, defeat Israel’s enemies, and slay the Dragon in the sea just as he had done before. Satan, Sea, and Death would be defeated once and for all. Then, as before, Yahweh would be enthroned, and at this cosmic Feast of Tabernacles, this eschatological banquet, the righteous would eat the carcasses of the chaos-monsters. Death would be no more, and glorious abundance would proliferate in the Second Eden.

Such is the essence of the apocalyptic combat myth. In its apocalyptic revaloration, the traditional themes of the myth each have their cosmic reflexes. So, for example, agricultural rejuvenation at the New Year becomes the miraculous fecundity of the cosmic New Year and bodily resurrection; the cultic realities of the festival are transformed into an eschatological feast and processional via sacra; the association of the chaos-monsters with political enemies becomes a vision of the world as the kingdom of the Dragon, whose helper beasts are the oppressive political powers (both Jew and gentile) of earth; and the general assurance that the god of fertility and order ruled becomes the fervent promise that Yahweh’s victory over the Devil is imminent, his cosmic power assured. Such was the framework of Jewish apocalypticism, influenced as it was by the traditional Hebrew combat myth.

As an outgrowth of Jewish apocalypticism, however, early Christianity inherits this framework, adapting it of course to the ministry and identity of Jesus of Nazareth. With this re-imagination, Jesus becomes the divine warrior, the delegate messiah of Yahweh whose mission is none other than to slay the Dragon and thereby attain kingship. Indeed, his ministry on earth was the first crucial inauguration of this final cosmic battle between Yahweh and Satan. This connection of Jesus of Nazareth with the divine warrior of the apocalyptic combat myth underlies the theological message of Paul, and utterly permeates the apocalyptic visions of Revelation. So too does it lie at the heart of the Gospels.

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[1] N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God  (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 268-9.

[2] Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 189.

[3] See e.g., Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic, 299-324;  Forsyth, The Old Enemy, 124-211.

[4] See Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity  (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 174-220; Elaine H. Pagels, The Origin of Satan  (New York: Random House, 1995), 35-62.

[5] Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 135-6.

[6] Day, God’s Conflict, 142; Angel, Chaos and the Son of Man, 5.

[7] ABD, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism,” 283.

[8] Forsyth, The Old Enemy, 12-13. In light of the arguments made above, the only qualification I would give to this statement is a critique of the word “revival.” Additionally, Forsyth exclusively speaks of “sacred scriptures,” which, even interpreted in its broadest sense (to include pseudepigrapha and other texts that did not become canonical), does not give adequate attention to non-textual sources, such as oral traditions, cultic practices, etc., as lines of transmission for these ancient mythological modes.

[9] Ibid., 126.

[10] Ibid., 126-32

[11] Ibid., 134-42.

[12] Hugh R. Page, The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion: A Study of Its Reflexes in Ugaritic and Biblical Literature  (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996).

[13] Ibid., 206.

[14] For a comprehensive concordance of texts which developed the rebellion/combat myth from ANE material into the New Testament, see ibid., 35-45

[15] Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict  (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 101-2.

[16] Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, 182-3.

[17] Clifford, “The Roots of Apocalypticism,” 4.

[18] OTP 1.6-7.

[19] 10:12 reads, “And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.”

[20] OTP 2.252.

[21] Life of Adam and Eve 14:3-16:1 in OTP 1.262.

[22] Forsyth, The Old Enemy, 238.

[23] Ibid., 232, 233.

[24] Interestingly, the first Beast, with its lion’s body and eagle wings, recalls the Anzu bird: the chaos-monster from the Babylonian Ninurta/Anzu combat myth, which has both lion and bird-like features. For this connection specifically, and the relationship of Daniel 7 to the combat myth generally, see John H. Walton, “The Anzu Myth as Relevent Background for Daniel 7?” in The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, ed. John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint (Leiden: Brill, 2001).There is general consensus about the idea that the sea in Dan 7:2 recalls the Chaotic Sea of ancient Near Eastern combat myths. For this, see the bibliography in Angel, Chaos and the Son of Man, 100 n. 4.

[25] John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 295ff.

[26] Ibid., 278.

[27] Ibid., 301 n. 216.

[28] While the text is ambiguous on this point, I side with Day, who writes, “Although not explicitly stated, we are probably to understand that the one like a son of man himself (under God) defeated the dragon.” Day, God’s Conflict, 162. Collins, less definite, at least challenges some scholars’ assumptions that the dragon is not defeated in combat, for in fact, he defends, “we are not told how it meets its demise.” See Collins, Daniel, 303-4 n. 237.

[29] Daniel, 290; cf. 291, 294. The idea was first proposed at length in J. A. Emerton, “The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery,” JTS 9 (1958): 225-242. It has since gained increasing support. Cf. Clifford, “The Roots of Apocalypticism,” 33; Day, God’s Conflict, 157-77; Angel, Chaos and the Son of Man, 102-10.

[30] Collins, Daniel, 310; Day, God’s Conflict, 167.

[31] Collins, Daniel, 291.

[32] Ibid., 288-289; emphasis mine. See also 59-60.

[33] Ibid., 292. Cf. Day, God’s Conflict, 166.

[34] Angel, Chaos and the Son of Man.

[35] Aage Bentzen, King and Messiah  (London: Lutterworth Press, 1955), 74ff., 109f.

[36] Emerton, “The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery,” 230-1; emphasis mine.

[37] Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 117.

[38] Ibid., 123; emphasis mine.

[39] OTP 1.777-78.

[40] T. Judah 21:7, 9. All Testaments translations from OTP 1.782-828.

[41] T. Ash. 7:2-3. The bracketed elements are most probably later Christian interpolations.

[42] Though the name “Satan” is used a number of times to refer to God’s cosmic adversary, by far the more popular designation is Beliar, which occurs no less than 29 times. See Harm W. Hollander and Marinus de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary, Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), 49.

[43] T. Dan 5:10-12.

[44] Cf. also T. Sim. 6:6.

[45] 18:10-12.

[46] 11QH^a Col. X (Col. II) 11b-13a, 21b-22, 27-28a = Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, 6 vols., vol. 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 19-21.

[47] 1QH^a Col. XI (Col. III + Frg 25) line 15 = ibid., 23.

[48] 1QH^a Col. XI (Col. III + Frg 25) lines 32-36 = ibid., 25.

[49] Jacobsen, The Harps That Once, 250, lines 292, 296.

[50] OTP 1.520.

[51] For dating of 2 Baruch see OTP 1.616-17.

[52] Dale C. Allison, “The Eschatology of Jesus,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, ed. John J. Collins (New York: Continuum, 1998), 276. For examples, Allison cites Acts 3:19-20; Rom 13:11; 1 Cor 16:22; 1 Thess 5:1-11; Heb 10:37; Jas 5:8; 1 Peter 4:17; 1 John 2:8; Rev 22:20; and Didache 16.

[53] This possible allusions is made all the more intriguing for the fact that Paul seems to substitute “Christ” for “the Law of the Lord”—a rhetorical move quite in keeping with his theology.

[54] Boyd, God at War, 261.

[55] In 2 Cor 6:13 and 7:2 Paul announces to the Corinthians, “Be wide open for us…Make room for us,” which may also reflect the herald’s language at a sacred procession  (ABD, “Processions,” 472).

[56] ABD, “Warrior, Divine,” 879.

[57] Forsyth, The Old Enemy, 251.

[58] So Ps 74:14, which speaks of “heads” in the plural, but does not specify their number.

[59] Smith and Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, KTU 1.5.i.1-4.

[60] Cf. also the “Seven-headed Serpent” which Ninurta slays.  Text in Jacobsen, The Harps That Once, 243, lines 128-9, 133.

[61] Forsyth, The Old Enemy, 252; Day, God’s Conflict, 24; Collins, Daniel, 288.

[62] Cf. Ps 124, where the righteous one escapes “like a bird” from his enemies, here compared to “the Flood” (v. 4) and  “the raging Waters” (v. 5).

[63] David Edward Aune, Revelation, 3 vols., Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Books, 1997), vol. 3, 944.

[64] Day, God’s Conflict, 83 n. 59; 141; Angel, Chaos and the Son of Man, 146 and n. 245.

[65] Following Wakeman, God’s Battle with the Monster, 106-17

[66] The singularity of Death/Hades may even be reflected in manuscript variants, which read: “And Death-and-Hades gave up (singular) the dead in him/it (singular).” See Aune, Revelation, vol. 3 ns. 13.d-d and 13.e-e on 1075.

[67] Forsyth, The Old Enemy, 256.

[68] A separate allusion to the defeat of Death may be found in Rev 7:16-17. Here, the martyrs stand in God’s throne room with palm fronds (likely an allusion to the cosmic New Year festival) and rest assured in his protection: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” In the traditional myth, Death was the summer sterility of the land—the “scorching heat” causing hunger and thirst. Thus, here God has saved the righteous from Death. Moreover, Mot/Death was also sometimes understood as a shepherd (e.g., KTU 1.6.ii.21-23; Ps 49:15). Here, the role is reversed as Christ (as the Lamb—another irony) will be the shepherd leading them to springs of life. These ironic reversals are capped by a final allusion to Is 25:8, which, we have seen, ironically reveres the old myth by declaring God will swallow Death.