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The ancient myth of a battle between a Divine Warrior and a
primordial monster undergoes significant development in
postbiblical and rabbinic literatures. This development is the
focus of the present study. In particular, it examines the monsters
Leviathan and Behemoth, showing that the postbiblical and rabbinic
traditions about them are derived from ancient sources that are not
all preserved in the biblical texts. In the Apocalypse of Abraham
and the Ladder of Jacob, the monster Leviathan is placed at the
juncture of heaven and the underworld. This cosmological focus
appears in rabbinic literature in traditions concerning Behemoth,
Leviathan, and the world rivers, and concerning Leviathan as the
foundation of the axis mundi. These originate in the Divine
Warrior's enthronement upon the vanquished chaos dragon. A second
role in which Leviathan and Behemoth appear in postbiblical
literature is as food for the eschatological banquet. Whitney
studies this in a variety of sources, among them 4 Ezra 6:47-52, 2
Apocalypse of Baruch 29:4, and 1 Enoch 60:7-9, 24, and a number of
rabbinic texts. In one tradition, the battle between God and
monster becomes an angelic hunt, described by the Greek word
kynegesia. This sometimes referred to battles between beasts in the
arena, and in a variant tradition Leviathan battles Behemoth in a
fight to the death before the banquet. The "food for the righteous"
motif possibly stems from the introduction of hunting imagery into
the combat myth: the prevalence of hunting banquets gave rise to
the expectation that these monsters, the prey in a divine hunt,
would feed the righteous at the end of time.
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