Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Themed Bible Study: Chaoskampf.


In the above Babylonian relief we see Tiamat, the personification of chaos, being defeated by the god Marduk. Here an act of  creation is represented as a struggle against chaos or chaoskampf. According to Wiki:

In the second [part of the] Chaoskampf  [myth] Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.

This Babylonian creation myth has points of contact with the Biblical themes of chaos, Satan and the serpent. In the Bible similar ideas of Divine creation vs the forces of anti-creation can be found. Human sin and Satan put the self first disrupting cooperation and harmony thereby contributing to the abyssal deep of chaos, the domain of the Leviathan. 

My recent Bible study on these themes can be found here: