(March 25, 2021 at 8:41 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Depends on the timeframe. Judaism is a bit further along in it's development than, say, christianity. They hit on the realization that the narratives are metaphor sooner. They've been trying to explain that to christians for quite some time, but you know how those guys are when it comes to insisting that jewish people got jewish myths all wrong.
To answer your question, multiple instances. Psalms has a concentration of them. In fact, you could just search the terms leviathan and behemoth to find any of them - and that's precisely because the dragon was almost exclusively used in the context of asserting their gods existence, power, dominion, and primacy. They stand out as prime examples of thematically canaanite elements in jewish mythology. Harkening back (and intentionally so) to the types of beliefs and myths that they had only recently diverged from as fresh henotheists asserting a disparate origin and establishment for their sub-culture.
The thing that I, personally, find super interesting about it, is the line between metaphor and truth in many of our discussions. We use metaphors precisely because we think that the truth of the one can buttress the other as truth. Even more specifically, how the truth on one or the other side of the line may be more important - and the ways that we've damaged that line-side truth by servicing and maintaining the superstitious line-side to it's detriment. Can we safely posit that these dragons are the primordial forces of chaos, land and sea, and do double duty as the enemies of their people (also conceived of as agents of chaos, for what it's worth) - and can we guess that the expressions are myth braking narrative. I think so, yes, and the reason that they felt compelled to tell -those- truths with a story about a dragon boiled down to beliefs they held or their audience held about dragons. Common, not at all seen to be ludicrous or ignorant beliefs, at the time. So, for them, as with any other metaphor today, the truth of one set seemed to express the truth of the other.
It wasn't either/or it was and. Dragons are awesome and powerful - and my god can make them, and my god can compel them to do it's bidding, and my god can destroy them. You think that your god can do all of this, but you're wrong - it was my god that did all of that.
“We use metaphors precisely because we think that the truth of the one can buttress the other as truth.”
==You mean to say that we use metaphors when were are communicating with each other?
If that is what you mean, that doesn’t seem unusual. Yes, it does happen. It’s pretty common.
Sometimes it is obvious that it is a metaphor and sometimes it is not.
Here are text extracts from the Bible. I think you were referring to these:
Psalms 74:13 KING JAMES VERSION
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
{74:14} Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, [and] gavest him [to be] meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Isaiah 27:1 KING JAMES VERSION
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.
“Can we safely posit that these dragons are the primordial forces of chaos, land and sea, and do double duty as the enemies of their people (also conceived of as agents of chaos, for what it's worth)“
==It is possible that the format of these expressions is to replace the non-intelligent problem entity with an entity that has a brain.
For example, if our space ship gets hit by a fast moving space debris, I could say
“Oh Satan, on that day you came and you made a hole in my ship!”
So, in the case of Psalms 74:13, if I demetaphorize that sentence, it might look something like this:
You did divide the sea with your strength. Sometimes, there are strong winds on those seas and you stopped them. We thank you. {74:14} Also, there are some strong winds and you converted the atoms that make up those winds and you rearranged them and converted it into meat and gave it to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
“It wasn't either/or it was and. Dragons are awesome and powerful - and my god can make them, and my god can compel them to do it's bidding, and my god can destroy them. You think that your god can do all of this, but you're wrong - it was my god that did all of that.”
==So, there is conversation going on between 2 sides where one side says my god can do this and that and the other side disagrees with them and they claim that it is their god that can do this and that.
It is certainly possible.
And perhaps at some point, someone decided that these stories told by his ancestors should be written down.
--Ferrocyanide
