At the St Philip's Bible talk today (Thursday 23 June), in the series on Job, we reached God's rhetorical discourse to Job; the one where God mentions two particular beasts: behemoth and leviathan. Justin told us that they were most likely referring to the hippopotamus and elephant. Or perhaps mythical beasts: fairy story characters.
Justin, I don't think so; on any count.
Firstly, look at the descriptions: His tail sways like a cedar (Job 40:17); doesn't remind me of a hippo!
[Interesting to note Job 40:15b: "made along with you" made like I made you, or made at the time I made you? I'll check it out; but there appears to be an element of confluence in their creation.]
Then leviathan: his back has rows of shields (Job 41:15), his snorting throws out flashes of fire (Job 41:18)! Not like any elephant I've seen!
Both explanations are improbable, particularly when there are known animals that the descriptions to fit' only they are extinct. Of course, one does become perplexed by Job's references when the history in the Bible is set aside and the ear is bent to the arid world-story of materialism that starts from a completely different premise to the Bible, and naturally has different conclusion!.
But would the creatures be mythical? I think not. The detail is too fine and unelaborated for myth, and to naturally descriptive, and many parts of the descriptions are 'every day' observations. And if they were myth, then what sort of God is worshipped when he has to go to fairy tales to depict his works, and not to his own creation; which itself is set in the Bible as the basis for him being worshipped by us!
