by Brian Godawa
In 1 Timothy and Titus, Paul is not comparing doctrinal teaching with mythical genre, he is comparing true doctrine with false doctrine that was being taught by the prevailing myths of his Jewish opponents who denied the Gospel.[26] It is the content that is damnable heresy to Paul, not the genre of mythic storytelling itself. Of this heretical mythology, scholar William Mounce writes,
It appears to have been a form of aberrant Judaism with Hellenistic/gnostic tendencies that overemphasized the law and underemphasized Christ and faith, taught dualism (asceticism, denial of a physical resurrection), was unduly interested in the minutiae of the OT, produced sinful lifestyles and irrelevant quibbling about words, and was destroying the reputation of the church in Ephesus.[27]
The New Testament does not command against using mythical storytelling, but against its misuse for false doctrine. Put positively, we should devote ourselves to myths that “promote stewardship from God that is by faith” (1Tim. 1:4), myths that “turn people to the truth” (Titus 1:14); “reverent, sober myths” of “faith, good doctrine” and “godliness” (1Tim. 4:6-7); myths that “turn toward the truth” (2Tim. 4:4).
But it is equally interesting to see how the Bible itself redeems pagan mythopoeic imagination.
I have written elsewhere about the extensive use of Canaanite poetry and imagination by Bible authors to express God’s own imagination.[28] The Bible redeems pagan imagination by using its motifs and baptizing them with altered subversive definitions that support Yahweh, the God of the Jewish Scriptures against Baal, the god of Canaan, and other pagan deities in the ancient Near East.
Two examples of this redemptive subversion that show up in Noah Primeval and Enoch Primordial are Leviathan and the divine council of the Sons of God. It appears that Yahweh was not only interested in dispossessing the Canaanite people from the Promised Land, he was interested in dispossessing their narrative, because the Bible embodies a subversion of Canaanite imagination within its own narrative.
Baal, the storm god, was the chief deity of the land of Canaan in the time of the Israelite conquest. Canaanite myths depict Baal as a “cloud rider” who defeats the River and the Sea, as well as the seven-headed Sea Dragon called “Leviathan,” (a symbol of chaos), in order to claim his eternal dominion.[29]
In polemical response to this mythology, the Biblical writers describe Yahweh as a “cloud rider” (Isa. 19:1; Psa. 104:3-4), who defeats the River and Sea (Hab. 3:8), as well as the Sea Dragon, “Leviathan,” (Isa. 89:6-12) or “Rahab” (Psa. 89:9-11) in order to establish his eternal dominion (Psa. 89:19-29). It appears that Yahweh, in consort with the human authors of the Bible, is subversively using the pagan cultural motifs and thought-forms of the day to say, “Baal is not God, Yahweh is God.”
In Psalm 74 and 89, and Isaiah 27 and 51 the story of the Exodus crossing of the Red Sea is described with the imaginative terms of creating the heavens and earth, crushing the heads of Leviathan, and binding the chaos waters of the sea in order to establish Yahweh’s covenantal dominion on the earth in his people. This is history mixed in with mythopoeic imagination to describe the theological significance of what is taking place — just like other ancient Near Eastern religions did.[30]
Another aspect of Canaanite pagan mythology that is redeemed in the Scriptures is the divine council of the Sons of God. In the sacred Baal texts we read about an assembly of the “Sons of El,” the father deity of the pantheon. Baal is a vice regent who ascends to the throne of El and rules over the other gods of the council, who then do his bidding.[31]
In the Bible, God (called “El” or “Elohim”) presides over a divine council or assembly of the “Sons of God” (Psa. 82:1; 89:5-7), who also give advice in judicial decisions of Yahweh (Psa. 82), and carry out his bidding as well (Job 1:6-12; 1Kings 22:19-22). A deified figure called the Son of Man is a vice regent who ascends to God’s throne surrounded by those “holy ones” who do his bidding (Dan. 7:9-14).[32]
Of course, there are significant differences that separate the monotheistic Biblical divine council and the polytheistic pagan Canaanite divine council. As one example illustrates, the Biblical divine council are not to be worshipped, as God is, while the Canaanite divine council were worshipped.[33] Big similarities, but bigger differences. Biblical imagination does not engage in syncretism (blending opposing views), but in subversion (infiltrating and overthrowing an opposing view). The commonalities show a clear cultural connection that is subversively redeemed and redefined in the Biblical understanding of the concept. God incorporates pagan imagination and motifs into his own narrative and subverts them through redefinition and poetic usage.
Eden
The novel Enoch Primordial includes the Garden of Eden as a location important to the plot of the story. For those who believe it was an historical place, there are as many suggestions for its location as there are Bible commentators. We just don’t know. The strongest hints are found in one passage, Genesis 2:10-14 that speaks of Eden at the headwaters of four rivers, The Pishon (in the land of Havilah), the Gihon (in the land of Cush), the Tigris, and the Euphrates.
The Tigris and Euphrates we know, but the Pishon and Gihon we do not. And if the flood was historical, whether global or local, then the terrain affected by that cataclysm would be significantly altered to derail all speculation. However, it’s still fun to try.
Archaeologist David Rohl takes the Bible as basically truthful about the people and events it speaks of in history. He has looked at geographical, linguistic, and archaeological evidence of the ancient and modern Near East, and has made a persuasive argument that the land of Eden was in the mountainous valley area known to us as Armenia, where modern Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq all meet.[34]
Bible readers often mistake the Garden of Eden for Eden itself. But Genesis speaks of “the Lord God planting a garden in Eden in the east” (Gen 2:8). So the Garden was in the eastern part of a land called “Eden.”
Rohl places the Garden in the Adji Chay valley adjacent to Lake Urmia and nestled in the volcanic mountainous ranges of the Savalan in the north and the Sahand in the south. He shows how that area is at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates as well as two other rivers he suggests are the Pishon (Araxes) and Gihon (Kezel Uzun).
The interesting variety of environments of volcanoes, mountains, lakes and forests were an inspiring setting to tell my story, so the map I’ve provided in the novel shows that I have followed Rohl’s scholarship on the location of that most elusive Paradise.
Enoch
Enoch Primordial is a story that takes place in the primeval ages before the flood. It follows the Biblical hero Enoch on his journey through the “world that then was,” as a holy man who preached judgment upon the Watchers and their progeny the giants. As discussed above, the book of 1 Enoch was used as a reference for the story of the novel. The Bible itself says almost nothing about Enoch. Apart from genealogical references, all Genesis has to say about him is this:
Genesis 5:21–24
When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
In the New Testament, we have three references: A genealogical reference, the quotation from 1 Enoch in Jude about God coming with judgment against the fornicating angels referenced earlier, and this passage from the writer of Hebrews reminding us of Enoch’s faith:
Hebrews 11:5
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.
Archaeologist David Rohl theorizes that if such important people of the Faith really did exist, then they are likely to show up in other ancient literature of the same geographic location or time period. They may have a different name in a different language and culture, which was common, or they may be distorted vestiges of the real per
son.
In his book Legend, Rohl sifts through extant Sumerian literature to find who he believes is a “distant Sumerian memory” of this antediluvian patriarch Enoch. He uncovers Mesopotamian literature that refers to seven sages called apkallus, or wise men who are regarded as the originators of the arts and skills of civilization. By removing the mythological veil covering these advisors to ancient kings whose kingship “descended from heaven,” he reveals a fascinating correlation. The seventh sage, Utuabzu, apkallu to King Enmeduranki of Sippar, is described as having “ascended to heaven,” just like Enoch, the seventh patriarch, did in the Bible.[35] So I decided to follow this possible connecting point for defining Enoch’s character in Enoch Primordial as being the apkallu to Enmeduranki of Sippar.
Cain
The infamous first murderer Cain, son of Adam, shows up in Enoch Primordial. He has a wolf companion and eventually we find that the curse/mark on Cain that the Bible does not explain is vampirism. Cain is an undead being who must feed on the blood of the living to maintain his wretched life. It reminds one of the fact that sometimes the greatest punishment is not death but living with the disastrous consequences of one’s actions.
Gen 4:11, 15
And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand…And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.
I drew from Jewish legends for this creative license. The rabbinic Genesis Rabbah 22:12 interpreted the “sign” that deterred others from attacking him as a protective dog (domesticated wolf), thus my lycanthropic connection.[36] The Pseudepigraphic Life of Adam and Eve paints a vampiric dream of Eve for her son Cain:
The Life of Adam and Eve 2:1-3:2
After these things Adam and Eve were together and when they were lying down to sleep, Eve said to her lord Adam, “My lord, I saw in a dream this night the blood of my son Amilabes, called Abel, being thrust into the mouth of Cain his brother, and he drank it mercilessly. He begged him to allow him a little of it, but he did not listen to him but swallowed all of it. And it did not stay in his stomach but came out of his mouth.”…
And God said to Michael the archangel, “Say to Adam, ‘The mystery which you know do not report to your son Cain, for he is a son of wrath.[37]
The notion of vampirism is not new to Enoch Primordial. We have seen the Watchers drink blood from sacrifices as a means of their sustaining life in Noah Primeval as well. Biblical theology links atonement to blood sacrifice because “life is in the blood.”
Leviticus 17:11–12
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.
This is not to make God into a vampire, but it does make vampirism into a reflection of the curse of seeking to be gods or “like god.” The notion of blood sacrifice was near universal in the ancient world because the imago dei in man, though distorted, is inescapable and thus finds its way into humankind’s distortions of God-created reality.
Azazel
Baal is of course, not the only pagan entity that is subverted in the Bible. Remember the fallen Watcher Azazel who, in the Enoch passages above, was bound into the earth in the desert? Azazel makes his appearance in Enoch Primordial in this same way as one of the two lead Watchers who instigate the rebellion of the Watchers and the revelation of occultic knowledge to humanity. There is a much debated Scripture where this Azazel tradition may be influencing the Hebrew understanding of atonement. In Leviticus 16, the high priest Aaron is instructed in sin offerings for the people of Israel. One of those offerings is to be a scapegoat.
Leviticus 16:7–10
Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
Scholarly opinion is not unanimous (is it ever?) over just what “Azazel” refers to, but knowing the Enochian tradition of the angelic Azazel bound in the desert, there is strong warrant for the thesis that it refers to a “desert demon”[38] who happens to have the name of the demonic fallen angel who was bound in the desert in 1 Enoch.
Another demonized pagan deity appears in the Old Testament that may shed more light on this desert “goat-demon” Azazel. The Hebrew word, seirim is translated in several Old Testament passages as the pagan “satyr” or “hairy goat-demon.” In two places it refers to the goat idols to whom some Canaanites made sacrifices (Lev. 17:7; 2Chron. 11:15) and in others to demonic entities that haunt the desert (Isa. 13:21; 34:14).[39] The Hebrews saw these pagan deities as the same thing: Demons.
Banias in ancient northern Canaan/Israel near Caesarea Philippi eventually became the center of worship for Pan, the hybrid goat-man deity. And this temple was near the base of Mount Hermon. To the Old Testament Jew, Azazel was an analog or incarnation of the desert goat-demon.[40]
Lilith
Another Mesopotamian deity subverted in the Old Testament narrative is Lilith, the she-demon. Regarding this monster, the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible says its Mesopotamian narrative reaches back to the third millennium B.C.
Here we find Inanna who plants a tree later hoping to cut from its wood a throne and a bed for herself. But as the tree grows, a snake [Ningishzida] makes its nest at its roots, Anzu settled in the top and in the trunk the demon makes her lair... Of greater importance, however, is the sexual aspect of the—mainly—female demons lilitu and lili. Thus the texts refer to them as the ones who have no husband, or as the ones who stroll about searching for men in order to ensnare them.[41]
Lilith was also known as the demon who stole away newborn babies to suck their blood, eat their bone marrow and consume their flesh.[42] In Jewish legends, she was described as having long hair and wings, and claimed to have been the first wife of Adam who was banished because of Adam’s unwillingness to accept her as his equal.[43] Lilith and her offspring make their appearance in Enoch Primordial as temptresses guarding the World Tree in the desert with the snake god Ningishzida in the roots and the Anzu bird in its high branches.
Lilith the “night hag” makes her appearance in the Bible in Isaiah 34 along with that other pagan mythical creature, the satyr, a demonized interpretation of the goat-like god Pan. In this chapter, prophetic judgment upon Edom involves turning it into a desert wasteland that is inhabited by all kinds of demons; ravens, jackals, hyenas, satyrs — and Lilith.
Isaiah 34:13–15 (RSV)
It shall be the haunt of jackals... And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas, the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, there shall the night hag [Lilith] alight, and find for herself a resting place.
Resheph and Qeteb
Two other “demonized deities” that show up in the Bible are Resheph and Qeteb. In the song of Moses, Yahweh describes how he will punish those Israelites who enter the Promised Land but do not obey him:
Deuteronomy 32:23-24
And I will heap disasters upon them;
I will spend my arrows on them;
they shall be wasted with hunger,
and devoured by plague (Resheph)
and poisonous pestilence (Qetab)
Resheph and Qeteb were Canaanite gods of plague and pestilence. Similar to this Deuteronomy passage, Resheph was described in Phoenicia as using his arrow of flaming judgment.[44] This curse is a poetic expression of Yahweh handing the rebellious Israelites over to the Canaanite gods for punishment.[45] As the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible concludes, “Qeteb is more than a literary figur
e, living as a spiritual, and highly dangerous, reality in the minds of poets and readers,”[46] and “in the OT Resheph is a demonized version of an ancient Canaanite god, now submitted to Yahweh.”[47]
Rahab
One of the mythopoeic creatures that shows up in Enoch Primordial is Rahab, the Sea Dragon of chaos. In the appendix of Noah Primeval, I explained the mythological origins of the seven-headed Sea Dragon called Leviathan and its appropriation in the Bible. Though the Old Testament seems to indicate Rahab as simply another name for this sea monster,[48] I decided to separate the two and make Leviathan the offspring of Rahab. But in the big war scene, we see that Rahab has other “helpers” with her, other monsters of the deep. This was also taken from a mythic motif that shows up in Babylonian, Ugaritic, and Biblical texts.
In the Ugaritic texts, the gods Baal and Anat defeat Leviathan along with her divine allies Yam, Nahar, Arsh, Atik, and others.[49] In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the god Marduk defeats the sea dragon Tiamat and her monster helpers.[50]
Tiamat assembled her creatures,
Drew up for battle against the gods her brood [offspring]...[51] She has set up the Viper, the Dragon, and the Sphinx, the Great-Lion, the Mad-Dog, and the Scorpion-Man, Mighty lion-demons, the Dragon-Fly, the Centaur…[52]
So, we also see Rahab, the sea monster in Biblical texts being crushed and her “helpers” the enemies of God being “bowed” and “scattered.”