In the Bible it calls a certain creature a leviathon- what kind of creature could have possibly been massive and a beast in the water at the time of the BIble?

PSalm 104:26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.
-its continues to refer to it more like a monster

Psalm 74:14 Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
-refering to "leviathan" as being a massive creature


Job 41:1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? 2 Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? 3 Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee? 4 Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? 5 Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? 6 Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants? 7 Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears? 8 Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. 9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? 10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?

-Shows that the people at that time were terrified of the creature and that he says that no one is willing to take on leviathan. They talk about him being taken down with a skin "full" of barbed irons and spears.

ANy thoughts on what kind of beast this MIGHT have been?

I think its possible that the text is simply referring to a whale. Or maybe a big shark. For one thing, the people probably could have been easily scared just spotting a huge whale surface beside a tiny fishing boat, and I'm sure people could have made up stories about it, extrapolating on what it actually was and looked like from only small glimpses of the underwater "beast".

Probably didn't take too much to scare people back then.

Or, it could have been some other, now extinct creature. If you believe (as some do) that people did live at the same time as dinosaurs, then it could have been one of those large, sea-faring lizards.

Or just one of those huge anomalies of legend (like Nessy) that continues to be the only one of its kind, and traveled (or still travels) around the world's oceans today, undetected by our formidable technology.

That is all.

Well i believe that the people back then wouldnt have had that much reference to it in the Bible if was just a normal sea monster. I think it might have been on of the Jurassic period sea creatures that had survivied.

Yes, but first Isaiah 27:1 sheds more light.

This is one of those remnants of the Egyptian heritage, the serpent seems to be Apophis, Ra's ultimate enemy, the most fearsome of all evil beings. You might want to read about Ra's daily journey through the underworld and apophis to get a feel for the passages in Psalms, Job and Isaiah.

What I would say:

Its the same beast that has inspired "sea creature that pounds ships into pieces" tales since many years back: The giant squid.

I find the Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces especially interesting. There is only one big creature I can think of that has "heads"...

Originally posted by JoeHead
ANy thoughts on what kind of beast this MIGHT have been?

I'm tempted to suggest that it is nothing more than a metaphor, an allegory, and [sadly] not a real creature at all.

In this way it stands for something else (although I've not considered what: I'd need to look at the other surrounding passages of text for that), and is described in this way to illustrate the (as yet unconsidered) idea being set out in the passages quoted.

A beast within mans hearts perhaps ...

I think there are a couple explanations here.

1.) a whale (it is in the book of Job, in which he is swallowed by a whale).

2.) simple reference to a mythical beast for the purpose of getting a point across... not necessarily saying that the beast was real... but rather using a reference that the people of the time would recognize and relate to.

3.) Giant squid... its possible that since not everyone had seen one, that the tentacles could have been mistaken as necks and the "clubs" (fin-like attatchments to the ends of the two long feeding tentacles used for grabbing food and steering while swimming) could appear like heads. Since a squid would be attacking a ship from underneath, the position the squid would be in (tentacles up, with the head underneath) could appear that the head was in fact the body, and the tentacles were in fact the necks and heads.

i don't think it was a whale....doesn't it refer to job being swallowed by just that...a whale...if that was a whale it would be refered to as such...first thing that comes to mind when i read this is nessie....then again...it could just be that they were delousional from being in the middle of the sea with nothing to drink or eat for days and being exposed to sun light.
HoundDog

1. It's not a whale or they would have said "whale"

2. Jonah, not Job was swallowed

3. No one is sure, but people believe they were crocodiles....
"The crooked serpent"

Also when behemoth is mentioned in Job, no one really knows what that is though most believe it's a hippo (or rhino).


Also when Unicorn is mentioned in the bible, as far as we know it's talking about aurocs, or wild oxen.

Um what verse in the bible mentions unicorns?

The leviathan was probably a giant squid. The behemoth was probably and elephant.

My take on this is that it's all made up in someones head. It's an imaginary creature. But if it were to be anything, you can basically count that is a carnivorous water animal found within the region.

I've done a bit of research on the subject of the mysterious leviathan, but don't have a specific answer. I've heard the leviathan described as a dragon, a dinosaur, a whale, the sea itself, a crocodile, a metaphor, and an extinct beast, or one unknown to us. (Loch Ness Monster, mokele mbembe, etc.)

Most think that the behemoth was a hippopotamus, as the Book of Job could have possibly taken place near to Africa, or in Egypt. This would fit the crocodile and behemoth theory.

Is it not possible that the Leviathan was some kind of a metaphor to describe some kind of big, tsunami-like wave? Or maybe some kind of storm...

Unicorn References:

"Unicorn"--
Numbers 23:22
Numbers 24:8
Job 39:9
Job 39:10
Psalms 29:6
Psalms 92:10

"Unicorns"--
Deuteronomy 33:17
Psalms 22:21
Isaiah 34:7