Religion and its Monsters

Author(s) Beal, Timothy

Imprint Routledge, 2023

ISBN 9780367440381, 9780367440541,

9781003007302, 9781000786095,
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5
DINNER AND A SHOW
Watching and Eating Monsters
with the Rabbis

Clearly, the Hebrew Bible is not in agreement with itself about what to do with
its monsters. As a result, it canonizes their ambiguity. The amalgamation of
mutually incompatible meanings embodied even in one monstrous name, such
as Leviathan, is beyond sorting out or resolving in a way that takes account of all
the different texts in which it appears: Leviathan is part of creation; Leviathan is
outside creation and a threat to it; Leviathan is the enemy nation; God crushed
Leviathan’s heads and killed it long ago; God will pierce Leviathan and kill it
in the future; God plays with Leviathan; God sings Leviathan’s praises. Biblical
monsters bear no single meaning, no overall unity or wholeness. They are theo-
logically unwholesome. As such they stand for the haunting sense of precarious-
ness and uncertainty that looms along the edges of the world, the edges of society,
the edges of consciousness and the edges of religious understanding and faith.
Different post-biblical traditions try to sort all this ambiguity out in different
ways, though always inconclusively. If we are looking for the text that has had
the greatest influence on western cultural history, including modern horror, the
prize must go to the vision of the devil-dragon in the Christian Apocalypse of
John, also known as the book of Revelation. But if we are looking for the most
ingenious and spectacular vision, nothing beats the rabbis’ plans for a final din-
ner and show featuring Leviathan and Behemoth in the Talmud and Midrash.

Seafaring Tales
The Babylonian Talmud, which was compiled around the end of the sixth
century CE, is a series of extended rabbinic discussions centered around the
text of the Mishnah, a compilation of commentary on the Torah that was

DOI: 10.4324/9781003007302-8
64 Religion and Its Monsters

completed around 200 CE. Although compiled from a variety of rabbinic

sources spanning several centuries, the final form of the Babylonian Talmud,
like that of the earlier Palestinian Talmud (completed around the end of the
fifth century CE), often reads like a series of narrative accounts of conversa-
tions among rabbis. As with most conversations, they often move far afield
of their designated subject. So it is in the discussion of a Mishnah text con-
cerning the business of selling ships in Tractate Baba Bathra (73a–77b). The
initial Mishnah simply clarifies the fact that when one sells a ship, the deal
includes the ship’s mast, sail, anchor and other implements needed for direct-
ing it but does not necessarily include its crew or other things that the seller
is storing in it (73a). Very quickly, however, the rabbinic discussion (Gemara)
of this Mishnah loses its mooring in the business details of selling and buying
ships and drifts into the less familiar and more fantastic straits of seafaring and
monster tales, winding up eventually with a vision of a future banquet for the
righteous in which Leviathan and Behemoth play a spectacular part.
Rabbah bar Hana makes the first move in this direction: “Seafarers told me:
The wave that sinks a ship appears with a white fringe of fire at its crest, and
when stricken with clubs on which is engraven, ‘I am that I am, Yah, the Lord
of Hosts, Amen, Amen, Selah,’ it subsides” (73a).1 The phrase “I am that I am”
is what God says to Moses from the burning bush when Moses asks who is
sending him and his people against Pharaoh of Egypt in Exodus 3. Very subtly,
then, this seafaring legend is picking up on the biblical tradition that associates
Egypt and its Pharaoh with chaos waters and chaos monsters (e.g., Psalm 89,
Isaiah 51, Ezekiel 29 and 32). The divine word that went with Moses against
Pharaoh is the word that subdues the deadly wave. This text assumes, moreo-
ver, that this is no ordinary wave, but a wave that has agency and personality,
that seeks to sink ships, that understands Hebrew and knows its Torah.
Bar Bar Hana then tells the story of a conversation between two giant
waves. It was witnessed by seafarers who were lifted by a wave so high that
they saw the resting place of the smallest star in the heavens. “If it had lifted us
up any higher we would have been burned by its heat.” While up there, they
heard one wave ask another of equal size if it had left anything in the world
to destroy, so that it could go and wash it away. The other wave answered,
“Go and see the power of the master [by whose command] I must not pass the
sand [by] the breadth of a thread” (73a). This text picks up on the description
of God setting limits for Yam or “sea” in Job 38, discussed earlier (“You may
come so far and no farther”). Here, as in bar Bar Hana’s first comment, the
waves are not quite monsters, but they are nonetheless personifications of vast,
potentially destructive power that is kept in check, chaos battle style, by the
creator God or by invoking the name of that God.
At this point, attention turns more directly to monster tales. Bar Bar Hana
begins by recounting his many first-hand encounters both at sea and on land
(73b–74a). He once saw a giant antelope the size of Mount Tabor who cast a
 Dinner and a Show 65

dung ball so big that it clogged the River Jordan. He once saw a giant frog, as
big as 60 houses. It was swallowed by a sea monster (Aramaic ­tannina’ = Hebrew
tannin),2 and the sea monster was then swallowed by a raven. After swallowing
the sea monster that swallowed the frog, the raven then perched itself on a
massive tree. “Come and see how strong was the tree,” he declares, by way of
proof of the size of the raven that allegedly perched on it. To which Rab Papa
bar Samuel adds, “Had I not been there I would not have believed it.”
Another time, bar Bar Hana saw a fish so big that when it was cast upon
the shore it destroyed 60 towns and provided food for 60 others. A year later,
when he returned to the area, he saw that the townspeople were cutting rafters
from its skeleton in order to rebuild the towns that had been destroyed.
On another occasion, they encountered a fish so big that it took them three
days and nights in a fast ship to travel from one of its fins to the next with it
going one way and them going the other. And just in case anyone suspects that
the ship was slow, bar Bar Hana adds that when a horseman shot an arrow the
ship outstripped it. Rab Ashi concludes that this fish must have been one of
the small sea monsters.
Then there was the giant fish whose back was covered with sand and grass.
Thinking it was solid ground, bar Bar Hana and his shipmates disembarked
and began cooking their food. The heat from their cooking made the fish roll
over and they jumped back aboard their ship in the nick of time.
On another occasion, bar Bar Hana recounts, they met a giant bird, called
the Ziz, whose ankles were in the sea and whose head was in the heavens.
Assuming that the water must be shallow, they decided to take a swim. But
before they entered the water, a Bath Kol (divine voice) called out, “Do not
go down here, for a carpenter’s axe was dropped [into this water] seven years
ago and it has not reached the bottom. And this, not [only] because the water
is deep but [also] because it is rapid.”
The wilderness, like the sea, can be a place of fantastic mystery. Bar Bar
Hana tells wilderness tales along with his seafaring tales. Once, for example,
an Arab merchant took him to see the Dead of the Wilderness, that is, those
Israelites who died during the wandering in the wilderness without ever see-
ing the promised land. They slept on their backs, and they were so gigantic
that the Arab rode his camel under the raised knee of one of them. Bar Bar
Hana cut a corner of purple-blue fabric from one of their garments, and they
found that they were unable to move away. The Arab explained that if one
takes anything from any of them one cannot move away.
Following bar Bar Hana, and picking up his preoccupation with the fan-
tastically large, Rab Safra brings the conversation around to an encounter
with the monster Leviathan itself: “Once we were traveling on board a ship
and we saw a fish that raised its head out of the sea. It had horns on which
was engraven: ‘I am a minor creature of the sea. I am three hundred parasangs
[over 900 miles long] and I am now going into the mouth of Leviathan’” (74a).
66 Religion and Its Monsters

The stories told thus far, including this last one about Leviathan, are mon-
ster legends that aim to inspire awe and dread, much like the kind of monster
tales that might be told around a campfire. The main vehicle for the fear in
them is overwhelming size. In what follows, however, the conversation begins
to move away from the emphasis on size, and at the same time begins to focus
on the purposiveness of certain monsters. That is, the focus begins to shift
from monsters as figures of what Rudolph Otto called “dysteleology,” or the
negation of purpose, to monsters who exist to fulfill some larger divine will.
This shift begins with two stories in which divers try to gain treasure but
are thwarted by sea monsters. In the first story, a Kansa tries to stop them from
taking a treasure chest of purple-blue for the righteous in the world to come.
In the second story, a sea monster tries to swallow a ship when one of its divers
takes the precious stone it protects. When a giant raven severs the sea monster’s
head for the second time, the salted birds that are on the ship come to life and
fly away with it (74a–74b). In both these stories, sea monsters serve as protec-
tors of treasures that are being saved by God for a time to come. They guard
against humans and other creatures who would otherwise steal them away and
thereby pervert their cosmic purpose. These monsters are opposed to human
will but aligned with divine will.
Next, a second-hand story about Rabbi Joshua’s encounter with Leviathan
is passed along:

Our rabbis taught: R. Eliezer and R. Joshua were travelling on board

a ship. R. Eliezer was sleeping and R. Joshua was awake. R. Joshua
shuddered and R. Eliezer awoke. He said to him: “What is the matter,
Joshua? What has caused you to tremble?” He said unto him, “I have
seen a great light in the sea.” He said unto him: “You may have seen the
eyes of Leviathan, for it is written: His eyes are like the eyelids or the
morning.”

The scriptural passage “his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning” is from
Job 41:10 (or 41:18), in which, as discussed in the previous chapter, God is sing-
ing the praises of Leviathan. In this story, an experience of horror in which a
great light appears where it should not appear is interpreted using a text from
the Hebrew Bible. At the same time, the Hebrew Bible is interpreted using
a text from seafaring lore: Joshua’s shuddering at the sight suggests that the
description of Leviathan in Job 41 is at least as terrifying as it is fascinating.

Fresh, Frozen or Salt-Cured

This story of Joshua’s encounter with the luminous eyes of Leviathan brings
biblical interpretation into more direct relation to the telling of monster tales
and inaugurates a series of discussions that draw in several other biblical texts
 Dinner and a Show 67

referring to Leviathan or “sea monsters” (tanninim). In the process, several dif-

ferent biblical texts are stitched together as a canvas for depicting Leviathan’s
part in a grand, indeed monstrous banquet for the righteous in the world
to come.
First, the scripture on the creation of sea monsters in Genesis 1:21 is quoted:
“And God created the great sea monsters.” Here the sea monsters are not pri-
mordial chaos monsters that oppose God and God’s creation but are asserted
to be part of the order of creation and in keeping with divine intention (com-
pare Psalm 104:7). Of course there are a number of other biblical passages that
envision a much more hostile relationship between God and such monsters.
Interestingly, the next rabbi to speak, Johanan, immediately turns attention to
just such a passage, namely Isaiah 27:1, in which the sea monster, the twisting
and fleeing serpent, and Leviathan are identified as different names for God’s
and Judah’s cosmic and political archenemy Babylon. But Johanan does not
identify this sea monster with Babylon or any other archenemy. He begins to
envision a strikingly different meaning and purpose for the future slaying of
Leviathan anticipated by Isaiah:

R. Johanan said: This [Genesis 1:21] refers to Leviathan the fleeing ser-
pent and Leviathan the twisting serpent, for it is written: In that day
the Lord with his cruel [and great and strong] sword will punish …
[Leviathan the fleeing serpent and Leviathan the twisting serpent, and
he will kill the sea monster that is in the sea (Isaiah 27:1)].3

Thus Johanan places one text, Genesis 1:21, in which great sea monsters are
part of God’s created order, next to another text, Isaiah 27:1, in which a par-
ticular sea monster, Leviathan, is a hostile opponent to that created order. In this
way, he places an apparent biblical contradiction about Leviathan and the sea
monster front and center, as though the one text obviously refers to the other.
How can this be? According to this interpretation, Leviathan is a great sea
monster (tannin), created on the fifth day (Genesis 1:21), whose ultimate pur-
pose will be fulfilled when it is killed by God in a time to come. Then why
does Genesis say that great sea monsters, plural, were created? Rab Judah pro-
vides the answer, and in the process brings another monster into the picture,
namely Behemoth, whom God describes along with Leviathan in the final
whirlwind speech of Job:

All that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in his world he created
male and female. Likewise, Leviathan the fleeing serpent and Leviathan
the twisting serpent he created male and female; and had they mated
with one another they would have destroyed the whole world. What
[then] did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He castrated the male and
killed the female preserving it in salt for the righteous in the world to
68 Religion and Its Monsters

come; for it is written: And he will slay the sea monster that is in the
sea [Isaiah 27:1]. And also Behemoth on a thousand hills were created
male and female, and had they mated with one another they would have
destroyed the whole world.4 What did the Holy One, blessed be He,
do? He castrated the male and cooled the female and preserved it for
the righteous for the world to come; for it is written: Behold now its
strength is in its loins [ Job 40:16a]—this refers to the male; and its might
is in the muscles of its belly [ Job 40:16b]5 —this refers to the female.
There also, [in the case of Leviathan], he should have castrated the male
and cooled the female [why then did he kill the female]?—Fishes are
dissolute. Why did he not reverse the process?—If you wish, say: [It
is because a] female [fish] preserved in salt is tastier. If you prefer, say:
Because it is written: There is Leviathan whom Thou hast formed to
sport with, and with a female this is not proper. Then here also [in the
case of Behemoth] he should have preserved the female in salt?—Salted
fish is palatable, salted flesh is not.
(Baba Bathra 74b)

Alluding again to the creation story in Genesis 1, Judah here explains that
God created all creatures female and male, including Leviathan, “the twisting
serpent … the fleeing serpent … the sea monster that is in the sea.” So God had
actually created two Leviathans in the beginning, one female and one male,
and these are the “great sea monsters” referred to in Genesis 1:21. But as soon
as the words “be fruitful and multiply, fill the waters of the sea” were uttered,
God realized that there would be trouble. For if Leviathans were allowed to
reproduce, it would destroy the world. Leviathan, in this sense, is a part of
the order of creation that, with God’s blessing to thrive in the world, would
become a chaos monster, destroying everything else. Leviathan is within the
world ecology even while being potentially destructive to it. The cosmos is
an ecology of order and chaos, apparently to the dismay of the creator God.
In response to this dilemma, according to Judah, God castrated the male
and killed the female, preserving her in salt (why is she preserved? keep read-
ing). Judah then ties the text of Isaiah 27:1 into the conversation: “and God
will slay the sea monster that is in the sea.” The castrated male Leviathan is still
alive and kicking in the world, but not forever. God will slay him in the future.
God has killed Leviathan (the female) and God will kill Leviathan (male).
So also, says Judah, with Behemoth, which he refers to in tandem with
Leviathan just as God does in Job 40–41. The two lines quoted from Job 40:16,
according to Judah, refer to the male and female Behemoths, respectively,
apparently taking the reference to strong loins in the first part of that verse as a
reference to male strength. Thus castration would appropriately diminish the
male Behemoth’s strength. And the female Behemoth got the same raw deal
as the female Leviathan. Except that the female Behemoth required a different
method of preservation, that is, cooling instead of salting. Salting would not
 Dinner and a Show 69

have been very tasty for the beefy Behemoth (why does it need to be tasty?
read on). And given that a fish might still be able to reproduce in cold temper-
atures, cooling would not have worked for the female Leviathan. Perhaps God
could have killed the male instead of the female? Quoting from Psalm 104:26,
in which Leviathan is presented as a play partner for God, the rabbi insists that
such a relationship would not have been appropriate. A (presumably male)
God should not be splashing around with a female sea monster.
Sexual discrimination aside for the moment, we are left with the rab-
bis sharing the world with a male Behemoth and a male Leviathan. The
female Behemoth is in the cooler and the female Leviathan is curing in salt.
Drawing from Isaiah 27:1, it is expected that God will eventually slay the male
Leviathan, that is, “the sea monster that is in the sea.” Continuing this same
train of thought about a future slaying of Leviathan, another rabbi, Rab Demi,
begins to explain how this will come about. In the future the angel Gabriel
will arrange a “wild beast contest” involving Leviathan, that is, a Roman coli-
seum-style spectacle in which Leviathan will presumably be killed (74b–75a).6
As the conversation turns in this direction, we begin to get some sense for why
it matters that the flavor of the female monsters be well preserved.
Drawing extensively, and most ingeniously, from the long description of
Leviathan in the divine whirlwind speech in Job, bar Bar Hana provides sev-
eral details concerning a banquet that will accompany the wild beast contest.
First, based on Job 40:30 (or 41:6),7 he says that the flesh of Leviathan will be
given as food for the righteous at said banquet in the world to come (75a). At
this feast of Leviathan, he explains further, God will make a tabernacle, or suk-
kah, from Leviathan’s skin for every righteous person who is worthy of such an
honor. As a basis for this claim, he quotes from Job 40:31, but with a twist: Bar
Hana quotes the passage as “Can you fill tabernacles [besukkot] with his skin?”
rather than “Can you fill his head with darts?” reading the homonym besukkot
(with the letter samek), “in tabernacles,” rather than the standard Masoretic
Hebrew text’s beśukkot (with the letter sin), “with darts”! Bar Bar Hana goes on
to explain that guests deemed not righteous enough to receive whole genuine
Leviathan hide tabernacles will receive, instead, head coverings made of the
same material. This is based on the second line of Job 40:31 (or 41:7), which
bar Bar Hana reads as “a covering of fish [for] his head” (reading ṣilṣal dagim
as “a covering of fish” rather than “fishing spear”). Guests deemed unworthy
of such fish hats will receive Leviathan hide necklaces, and guests unworthy
even of those will receive, at least, amulets made from the same monster fabric.
All the leftover skin from Leviathan, bar Bar Hana explains, will be used to
decorate the walls of the banquet hall.
At this point, attention turns from Leviathan to various other matters con-
cerning the final banquet and eventually even returns to the business of buy-
ing and selling ships (75b–77b). But as the conversation moves on, we are left
for the time being with a number of loose ends and monstrous leftovers. We
have a female Leviathan in salt, a female Behemoth in the cooler, and their
70 Religion and Its Monsters

respective male partners roving earth and sea for some undetermined time
to come. We expect that Leviathan, “the sea monster of the sea,” will be
killed eventually, and that this will involve some kind of spectacular contest
arranged by Gabriel. Furthermore, the righteous will enjoy a banquet, related
to the wild beast contest, in which the main course will be Leviathan (perhaps
both fresh and salted varieties). But how, specifically, is the contest related
to the banquet? Is that where Leviathan will be killed? By God, Gabriel or
someone else? And where does Behemoth (dead and alive) fit into all this? For
some answers and a fuller picture of the spectacle to come, we must politely
slip out of this Talmudic conversation and go elsewhere in rabbinic tradition,
to Midrash Leviticus Rabbah.

Is This Monster Kosher?

Midrash Leviticus Rabbah is an early (fifth-, sixth- or seventh-century CE)
Palestinian compilation of midrashic commentary based on select passages
from Leviticus. The discussions of the rabbis in Leviticus Rabbah often involve
extended interpretive discussions that build outward through the incorpora-
tion of more and more biblical texts. In one such discussion (XIII.3), concern-
ing the dietary restrictions (kosher laws) in Leviticus 11, Judah and Simeon
provide additional details about the wild beast contest involving Leviathan
mentioned by Demi and Bar Hana in Bavli Talmud Baba Bathra: the spectacle
is to be held for the righteous, they explain, as a reward for refusing to watch
the Roman spectacles, and it will involve both Leviathan and Behemoth, who
will kill one another in battle. In addition to providing these helpful details,
however, they introduce a problem concerning the method by which Behemoth
and Leviathan will be slaughtered at this final spectacle and banquet for the
righteous: will this monster meat be kosher? Will the slaughter be done in a
kosher manner? If not, how will the righteous be allowed to eat it?

Behemoth and Leviathan are to engage in a wild-beast contest before

the righteous in the Time to Come, and whoever has not been a spec-
tator at the wild-beast contests of the heathen nations in this world [or
“nations of this world”] will be accorded the boon of seeing one in the
World to Come. How will they be slaughtered? Behemoth will, with
its horns, pull Leviathan down and rend it, and Leviathan will, with its
fins, pull Behemoth down and pierce it through.—The Sages said: And
is this a valid method of slaughter? Have we not learnt the following in
a Mishnah: All may slaughter, and one may slaughter at all times [of the
day], and with any instrument except with a scythe, or a saw, or with
teeth [i.e., with a jaw cut out of a dead animal], because they cause pain
as if by choking, or with a nail [of a living body]?
(XIII.3)
 Dinner and a Show 71

The expectation here is that Leviathan and Behemoth will slaughter one
another in the same instant, since they have no other worldly rivals. Behemoth
will use its horns to pull down and tear apart Leviathan, while Leviathan will
use its fins to slay Behemoth by piercing its windpipe. Even before the sage
responds, the terminology in this description invokes priestly concerns about
whether or not their mutual slaughter in this manner fulfills kosher require-
ments. The term used by the rabbis in reference to their mutual “slaughter”
is a form of the verb shaḥaṭ, which appears primarily in ritual contexts such
as Leviticus 1–7 to describe the proper slaughter of animals for sacrifice. The
sages’ question makes the concern explicit: “Is this slaughter valid,” or more
literally, “is this slaughter kosher?” Is it ritually permitted? If not, how will the
righteous be allowed to eat of it? Insofar as the Mishnah (Talmud Hullin I.2)
says that anyone can perform the slaughter on any given day, it is acceptable
that they kill each other at this time. The problem lies in the method of killing,
for Leviathan’s fins are serrated, and therefore something like a saw, which is
one of the instruments not permitted for slaughtering animals.
Assumed here, of course, is that what is kosher for the routine killing of
everyday animals should also apply in such an extravagantly spectacular scene
as the final battle between Behemoth and Leviathan. Beyond that, it is fasci-
nating to note that the reason given for prohibiting the use of these particular
slaughtering instruments is that they cause undue pain. To be killed with one
of these instruments would feel like being choked or clawed to death. Perhaps
even a monster should not be slaughtered in such a cruel and unusual manner.
In response to this question from the sages, however, Abin ben Kahana
explains that this is an exceptional case, and therefore these extraordinary
methods of slaughter are permitted. He begins with a quotation, drawn from
Isaiah 51:4, “a new law [torah ḥadashah] shall go forth from me,” which he reads
as, “a novel interpretation of the law [ḥiddush torah] will go forth from me.”8
That is, this entirely novel case of slaughter calls for a novel interpretation of
the pertinent law, one which will allow Leviathan’s slaughter of Behemoth
with its saw-like fin to be kosher. The righteous will taste Behemoth.
In this same spirit of exception, Rabbi Berekiah pushes both the kosher
issue and the exceptional character of this case even further. Beyond the
saw-like nature of Leviathan’s killing tool, he points out, the prohibition in
Leviticus 7:24 against eating any dead animal (nebelah) that has been killed or
torn by other animals would suggest that neither Behemoth nor Leviathan will
be kosher.9 As Berekiah insists, however, “whoever has not eaten nebelah in
this world will have the privilege of enjoying it in the World to Come.” Just
as the self-restraint of the righteous in refusing to participate in the Roman
spectacles of human and animal contests means that they will enjoy a far more
spectacular monster contest, so their self-restraint in refusing to eat torn ani-
mals in this world means that they will enjoy torn monster in the world to
come.10 So save room.
72 Religion and Its Monsters

Jonah’s Undersea Adventure

Another midrashic text, the eighth- or ninth-century Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer,
offers an alternative to the mutual killing anticipated by the rabbis in Leviticus
Rabbah. It imagines that God has other plans for Leviathan in which Jonah
will be the hero.11 This text offers an imaginative retelling of the Jonah story
that focuses on what happens to him during his stay in the belly of the great
fish that swallows him.
The fish that swallows Jonah, the text explains, was not just any old giant
fish who happened to be swimming by when the seamen threw Jonah over-
board. It had been ordained to do so since creation. Jonah enters into it as
though he is entering a synagogue. Inside, the fish’s two eyes are like windows
and a great pearl hangs in the belly, shining like the sun at noontime—a kind
of “tactfully lit, schul-submarine,” as Yvonne Sherwood puts it.12 After show-
ing Jonah many things in the sea and in the abysses, the fish explains to him
that the day has arrived for it to be eaten by Leviathan.
Terrible timing? Not at all. As soon as Jonah hears that this is the fish’s
day to be monster meal, he realizes why God has sent him on this undersea
adventure. Without pause he demands that the fish take him to Leviathan.
When they arrive, Jonah declares to Leviathan that the reason he has come
is to discover Leviathan’s dwelling place. For he is the one who will put a
rope through Leviathan’s tongue, haul it out of the sea and slaughter it for the
great banquet in the world to come. God had taunted Job, “Can you draw out
Leviathan with a fishhook? Can you press down its tongue with a rope?” ( Job
40:25 [or 41:1]). Jonah would have answered, “Yes I can and yes I will!”
After declaring his ultimate purpose, Jonah then exposes his “seal of
Abraham,” that is, his circumcised penis, and that frightens the monster away.
With Leviathan gone for the time being, Jonah and the fish continue their
underwater sightseeing tour, including stops at the pillars of the earth, the
deepest underworld of Sheol, the palace of God, and below it the Shetiyyah
Stone, which is the initial foundation stone sunk by God at the time of creation.
The fish tells Jonah that this would be a good time to pray. Jonah agrees
and does so, praying that God will now return him to life above sea level.
God does not seem to be listening until Jonah vows that he will indeed return
for Leviathan and will haul it up for slaughter for the banquet in the world
to come. As soon as the words leave Jonah’s mouth, God gives a sign to the
fish, and the fish spits Jonah out on dry land. Thus Jonah’s ultimate purpose as
Leviathan butcher for the final banquet receives divine confirmation.
Although they do not fit together into a single, seamless vision, the general
impression given in all these rabbinic stories and discussions is that the world,
especially the sea, is literally teeming with monsters. Although clearly part
of creation, created by God and intended by God for particular purposes,
these monsters nonetheless represent a certain uneasy fragility and instability
 Dinner and a Show 73

within the order of things—what I earlier called cosmic horror. They rep-
resent an otherworldliness within the world. The fact that the chaotic forces
of Leviathan and Behemoth, if left on their own to procreate, could have
destroyed God’s creation suggests a world ecology in which order and chaos
intertwine, often unpredictably, sometimes surprising even God. Yet within
these rabbinic discussions in Talmud and Midrash, there is, along with a cer-
tain fear and trembling, an undercurrent or excitement and fascination in the
monster tales and in the expectation of the final dinner and show. Not so in
the early Christian text of the Apocalypse of John, to which we now turn.

Notes
1 Except where noted, translations of passages from the Babylonian Talmud and
Midrash Rabbah are from the Soncino editions (The Babylonian Talmud, Seder
Nezikin, vol. II, Baba Bathra, trans. Isidore Epstein et al. [London: Soncino, 1935];
Midrash Rabbah Leviticus, trans. J. Israelstam and Judah J. Slotki [New York: Son-
cino, 1983]).
2 The Soncino edition translates the Aramaic tannina’ as “snake.” In keeping with my
earlier translations of the biblical Hebrew tannin, I translate it here and throughout
the discussion as “sea monster.”
3 Soncino translation has “slant serpent” and “tortuous serpent” for these two phrases
from Isaiah 27:1. On these phrases in biblical and Ugaritic texts, see Chapters 1 and 2.
4 The phrase “Behemoth on a thousand hills” is from Psalm 50:10. Most modern
translations read behemot in this psalm as the plural form of behemah (thus “beasts”
or “cattle on a thousand hills”). The rabbis in Talmud and Midrash (see below),
however, took it as the proper name Behemoth, as in Job 40. For several interpre-
tations of “upon a thousand hills” (does Behemoth feed from a thousand hills? does
it actually span a thousand hills?), see Midrash Leviticus Rabbah XXII.
5 I have replaced the Soncino translations of these two lines from Job 40:16 with my
own, so that their biblical source is clearer in English. The Hebrew here is identical
to that of the Masoretic Hebrew text of Job 40:16.
6 An early (second century CE) pseudepigraphal text, 2 Baruch 29:1–5, anticipates
that Leviathan and Behemoth are being preserved for a future banquet. In the final
days, “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” (“2 Baruch,” trans. A. F. J. Klijn, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, I, ed.
James H. Charlesworth [Garden City and New York: Doubleday, 1983] 630). Cf.
the first century BCE text 1 Enoch 60:7–10, which refers to the female Leviathan
and the male Behemoth as a pair who must be separated (see also 4 Ezra 6:49–52).
7 Modern translations of this verse ( Job 40:30 [or 41:6]) make no sense as a basis for
bar Bar Hana’s claim here. The Masoretic text, for example, reads “Shall traders
traffic in him? Will he be divided up among merchants?” Bar Bar Hana, however,
is reading the yikru (from krh) as an imperfect verb meaning “they will banquet”
(not as an inferred rhetorical question), thereby producing the statement “trad-
ers will make a banquet of him,” instead of the question, “will traders traffic in
him?” Likewise, the second line of the verse is read as “they will divide [not ‘will
they divide?’] him up among the kena’anim” which they take to mean “scholars”
rather than “merchants.” Thus the statement “they will divide him up among the
kena’anim [i.e., the righteous scholars].”
74 Religion and Its Monsters

8 This translation is based on the discussion of ḥiddush torah in Marcus Jastrow, Dic-
tionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature (New York:
Judaica, 1982) 427. The Soncino translation is: “The Holy One, blessed be he, said:
Instruction shall go forth from Me (Isa. LI, 4), i.e. an exceptional temporary ruling will
go forth from me.” In fact, the passage in the Masoretic text of Isaiah has neither
ḥiddush torah nor torab ḥadashah but simply torab, that is, “Torah will go forth from
me.” It is not clear whether the Midrash is working from a different version of
Isaiah 51:4 or is simply misquoting it. Given that this discussion concerns Levia-
than, moreover, it is probably no coincidence that Abin ben Kahana quotes from
Isaiah 51, for it is in this same chapter that Isaiah calls on God to awaken, as in
previous generations, when God “hacked Rahab to pieces” and “pierced the sea
monster” (Isaiah 51:9–10). As discussed in Chapter 2, this text remembers both
God’s cosmogonic defeat of the primordial chaos monster and God’s creation of
Israel by defeating its monstrous oppressor Egypt/Rahab. Although neither Behe-
moth nor Leviathan are personifications of Rome, that empire’s atrocities against
Jerusalem and the Jewish people do loom large in the background of this text.
9 See also Leviticus 17:15; 22:8; Exodus 22:30 (or 22:31).
10 A similar line of thought concerning the eating of Leviathan, Behemoth and other
monstrous figures (e.g., the Ziz) is found in Leviticus Rabbah XXII. 10: “As rec-
ompense for the prohibition of certain fish you will eat Leviathan, a clean fish; …
as recompense for the prohibition of certain cattle (behemoth) you shall eat Behe-
moth on a thousand mountains.” That Behemoth is on a thousand mountains, it is
asserted, means that it eats the herbs of a thousand mountains, suggesting that its
meat will be particularly tasty.
11 Chapter 10 of Pirke de Rabbi Eleazer (The Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer the Great Accord-
ing to the Manuscript Belonging to Abraham Epstein of Vienna), trans. G. Friedlander
(New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1981). See the excellent interpretation by
Yvonne Sherwood, A Biblical Text and its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western
Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 108–16.
12 Sherwood 109.