Leviathan and the Bible's 3rd Creation Story

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. And

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Well, it's a, it's a beautiful day to be alive. Uh, out there in the world, there are, as I am aware, no monsters, uh, outside of my window. So I am happy about that. I'm not besieged by-

Dan McClellan I'm, I'm, I'm thinking of a heavy metal band song, My Monsters Are Real. Every time I hear that song- ... I'm like, "You're still talking about figurative monsters." So no, they're not. But anyway.

Dan Beecher Oh, man.

Dan McClellan That's, that's neither here nor there.

Dan Beecher This is the guy who, who was diagnosed not, not neurodivergent- ... uh, getting that pedantic about things. All right. Yeah, literalism-

Dan McClellan The test came back negative, so ... literalism notwithstanding. Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Uh, today is gonna be fun because we've got a What's That, and it's about the, uh, the, the critters. Yeah. Big- Big critters ...

Dan McClellan the creepy crawlies in the Bible. Yeah. Well, they're not so much creepy crawlies. They're more like creepy thunderingly stomping around. St- stompies. Yeah, or, or swimmies. Yeah, so.

Dan Beecher Or swimmies. That's right. Uh- So let's just dive right into it with What's That?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right. Uh, w- we got three that, that, that we have prepared. We

Dan McClellan got three, yes.

Dan Beecher Uh-

Dan McClellan That, that we'll, we'll talk about. Uh, Leviathan, Rahab, and Behemoth.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Which-

Dan Beecher And, and not that Rahab. We, uh, last time- No ... uh, the last segment we did, we, we talked about a Rahab, but that was the prostitute that was helpful at the walls of Jericho.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, and that's not, that's not who we're discussing.

Dan McClellan Right. This, this Rahab got out of sex work pretty quickly- ... and, uh, was pretty much in the chaos monster business, uh, after college. So-

Dan Beecher I-

Dan McClellan Um-

Dan Beecher I... Can I be in the chaos monster business? I feel like that's a good gig. How do you get that one?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, it involves a lot of stomping and, um, you gotta have-

Dan Beecher I'm, I'm pretty sure my, my high school teachers-

Dan McClellan I don't know if you have the body type for it, but...

Dan Beecher I'm pretty sure my high school teachers would've called me a chaos monster, so. Or maybe-

Dan McClellan My high school teachers just said, "Man, you would, would really get somewhere if someone just, would just light a fire under your ass." So, um, yeah, which is, uh, related. But anyway.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So Leviathan, I think, is, is one of the coolest, uh, monsters, and definitely the monster that is mentioned the most- Yeah ... of the three. And, uh, we have references in, uh, a couple times in Job, couple different places in the Psalms, as well as a fascinating one in Isaiah 27.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And I wonder if we can start there, Isaiah 27:1. Uh- Okay.

Dan Beecher I'll allow it this one time.

Dan McClellan Okay. I appreciate it. Um, and here we have the beginning of a story of Israel's redemption.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And it says in the... This is the NRSVue, "On that day, the Lord, with his cruel and great and strong sword, will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea." So a couple things to point out about this. This is eschatological. This is looking forward to some day off in the future where God is going to take a sword and kill a dragon that lives in the sea, not in a pineapple- ... not under the sea, but in the sea.

Dan Beecher We don't know about the pineapple. It does not mention- Yeah ... pineapple or no pineapple, so. What is-

Dan McClellan Um-

Dan Beecher What's ancient Hebrew for pineapple? I don't think they even knew about it.

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh. I don't think the... Yeah, I think, I don't think we have that until, uh, we get the two different variations on it, uh, the, the piña or the pineapple variation. Anyway, uh, and, and what is fascinating about this is that this text was probably written somewhere in the late eighth century BCE or maybe a little after that. We have an almost identical statement in a Ugaritic text- Oh ... that comes from about 500 years earlier.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan Yes. And-

Dan Beecher That's a, that is a, an early pre-date right there.

Dan McClellan Yes. Yeah. So we're talking 500 years ago was before Shakespeare.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, um, it is an old... And, you know, we have a much, uh, a much more robust publishing, uh, environment these days than they did back then. But anyway. There's the, the Baal cycle, which is, uh, not something you do at Little League practice.

Dan Beecher I was gonna say.

Dan McClellan It is about-

Dan Beecher You're talking about Baal? Baal,

Dan McClellan or Baal if you're nasty, uh, is a, a s- storm deity. Ah. And there's a fight that happens between Baal and a chaos monster called Lotan. And here I'll remind you, Leviathan, the V there is really a vav in Hebrew, which can be understood as a W or an O.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So these are, these are cognate names.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan In other words, this is the Ugaritic version of the Hebrew name Leviathan, and it says that Paul... Paul. Baal, excuse me. Uh... Oh, boy. Sa- Saint

Dan Beecher Baal's epistle to the- ... to the Ugarits.

Dan McClellan The Ugarits. The, uh, uh, Baal destroyed Leviathan the fleeing serpent, or Lotan, excuse me. Lotan the fleeing serpent, Lotan the twisting serpent.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And the Ugar- the Ugaritic adjectives there are identical. They're cognate to the Hebrew adjectives. And then it says, "The dragon with seven heads." So not the dragon that is in the sea, but the dragon with seven heads. And- And this is fascinating because a sea serpent/dragon/monster with seven heads is actually pretty common in ancient, ancient West Asia. This is a, a kind of a s- a standard trope that- Oh ... there's this dragon with, with seven heads out there. Um, you know, the, the hydra is related, but, uh, we've rele- we've recently discovered an inscription that has a little, somebody etched a drawing of a seven-headed sea serpent into this inscription that came from around the 8th century BCE in Israel. So, so we- we're, we don't have a mention of seven heads in this passage.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But we are very clearly borrowing from some kind of sociocultural matrix, traditional matrix that the Ugaritic author of the Baal Cycle also drew from.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I don't think we can say Isaiah was like, "Where's that Baal Cycle? I wanted to... I thought there was a cool part in there I wanted to copy out." I don't think that's what Isaiah did, but very clearly this is something that was in the air. This was a tradition that people knew about, and Isaiah plucks it from the air and includes it in chapter 27. And, uh, while it does not say anything about, uh, having seven heads here, uh, I want you to go with me, if you will, to Psalm 74.

Dan Beecher I thought we were headed there. I, uh-

Dan McClellan You thought we were... All right.

Dan Beecher I, I, I was, I, I have been doing my research, so I knew-

Dan McClellan Yeah ... 74,

Dan Beecher I knew Psalm 74 was coming up because-

Dan McClellan Nice. Nice ...

Dan Beecher uh, because of that head thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So in Psalm 74 we've, we've got a, a very fairly early psalm, but it's at least incorporating some early traditions. And here we have, "Yet my God, yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth." So Isaiah 27 was looking forward to some kind of eschatological defeat of the chaos monster. And so in, in that text, the Leviathan is probably representative of just ge- the general chaos of the world. So God is going to defeat that chaos- Right ... and bring every, bring peace to everybody. Here we have, "My God, my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth. You divided the sea by your might. You broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan. You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness." So here we have a multi-headed Leviathan.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And, uh, one of, one of the things that I think is interesting is when we look at this, Leviathan is called a dragon, uh, in, in this passage. Uh, Leviathan in Isaiah 27:1 is called a, um, a fleeing serpent- Mm-hmm ... a twisting serpent, the dragon that is in the sea. There's an interesting thing in the Book of Revelation that refers to somebody as a dragon and a serpent. Do you recall who that was? Uh,

Dan Beecher no. Wait. Hmm. Satan? Satan? Okay.

Dan McClellan Yes. In, in Revelation, we have a reference to Satan as that great red serpent and dragon, and people think that that's talking about the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but guess who was there before the Garden of Eden? And guess who was the only one who was actually referred to as both a serpent and a dragon? Leviathan.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The Book of Revelation is about Leviathan as Satan, not the serpent from the Garden of Eden, because that was not identified with Satan, but I digress. Uh, in Psalm 74, we have a clear reference to the, the many heads of Leviathan. Oh, right, Revelation also says that s- this Satan beast has seven heads.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, you know.

Dan Beecher I, I wi- I, I will just, uh, briefly push back a little bit and say that 74 doesn't say many heads, it just says the heads. So it's-

Dan McClellan Plural heads, yeah.

Dan Beecher We know it's plural.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Could be two. Could be 11.

Dan McClellan Well, probably more than two. Uh, if there were two heads, they could have used, they were not necessarily required to use, but they could have used the dual form.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan 'Cause Hebrew has a dual form. So, uh, but Revelation also says-

Dan Beecher But it's probably seven heads because there's a tradition here. We have a whole tradition.

Dan McClellan Yeah, that's, that's a clear tradition that goes all the way down to Revelation. So, uh, you know, jot that down.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Anyway, um, so we have Leviathan as this primordial chaos monster. Psalm 74 is talking about salvation being worked in the earth in the past.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And the reference to dividing the seas sounds like the way that creation is sometimes described.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah.

Dan McClellan Because creation is about dividing things. You divide the light from the dark. You divide the waters from the waters. You divide the dry land from the seas. And so we have, in a few different parts, a discussion of the taming or the defeat of Leviathan as somehow associated with the taming of, or the re- compartmentalizing and restricting of the seas. So Leviathan is also a symbol of chaotic waters, the seas, and so to delineate them, to restrict them, to contain them, is also to bring order to creation. So-

Dan Beecher It's funny because when I read that myself, I saw, "You divided the sea by your might," and I thought, and I, I thought of Moses. But yeah, you're right that it probably makes a lot more sense that it is, like, dividing the seas from the s- the, the waters above from the waters below and all, all of that sort of thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, and there are, there are a few different places where, uh, we get this relationship of Leviathan to some kind of process of creation. And, and in the Enuma Elish and elsewhere, creation is, is an act of subduing chaos and bringing order.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So as the, like, main symbol of chaos- To defeat Leviathan is symbolic of bringing order through the subduing of chaos, so it's creation. So this is, you know, we talk about the two creation accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. This is the Hebrew Bible's third creation account, where it's not just, um, you know, pronouncing things. It's not just forming the human from the dust of, of the earth. We also are fighting a dragon-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... to, to bring about order to this chaotic world. Uh, and then the Leviathan is also representative of political enemies, and this where, this is where Rahab comes into view 'cause Rahab is also represented in Job, in the Psalms, in Isaiah. Notice a pattern here?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, we have, uh-

Dan Beecher Those are the books that really like their big monsters.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yes, these are, uh, pro-monster, at least pro-representation of monsters. Uh, you have, uh, in Isaiah 51:9, so this is no longer Isaiah 27. This is no longer first Isaiah. This is second Isaiah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan We've had first Isa- Isaiah. What about second Isaiah? Here is second Isaiah. Um, it is much later, by the way. Uh, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to cross over?" So here we have, um, we're bringing the exodus into play here.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We have the, the parting of the Red Sea, and Rahab is represented as Egypt, as one of these political enemies. So w- we can have the chaos monster representative of general chaos. We can also have Rahab, another chaos monster who is associated with the sea, representative of specific political enemies. Yeah. So I, I think you have... It's these stories, I think, make use of a, a broader kind of conceptual palette that they could, for, for, you know, putting together these compositions, for, for telling these stories in a way that are going t- that's going to invoke specific emotional responses. And if you've got these monsters, it's just a lot more fun. Um-

Dan Beecher Well, yeah, and I think it's so interesting. You know, they're, it, these are very clearly metaphors w- and it's-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... it, it's sort of explicitly using them metaphorically, and yet there are people out there who in, who want to insist on, uh, sort of the, the inerrancy of the Bible, who, who want it to be so literal that, that if it says that there are dragons, then there must have then been dragons back in the- ... back in biblical times or whatever. And I just think-

Dan McClellan Well, didn't you hear? Those are, that's the dinosaurs.

Dan Beecher Right, yes. Exactly.

Dan McClellan The dinosaurs walked with humans.

Dan Beecher We should probably do that, uh, do- ... a, a, a dinosaur segment where we just-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... talk about Ken Ham and Kent Hovind talking about-

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh

Dan Beecher ... all the dinosaurs- ... on the ark or whatever. And, uh- But I, but, but the, but it's so funny to me to back yourself into that corner because then it's just, then, then people are going to say, like, "Okay, now you have to be accountable for the, the idea of there being dragons-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... on the earth." What-

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher What are you doing to yourself?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's just a, it's just-

Dan McClellan This is a, this is an own goal. It's an unforced-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... error.

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah.

Dan McClellan You, yeah, it's, uh, it's- It's not necessary. Um, so, so Rahab could be a personification of the sea or at least a monsterification of the sea.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Or it could be another name for Leviathan. Uh, we don't have a-

Dan Beecher Oh, sure

Dan McClellan ... we don't have a ton of details about what precisely w- where this, uh, is coming from, but, uh, the, the word is also used to, to mean proud one. Um, so we see, uh, it used that way, and that might be why it's associated with, with Egypt.

Dan Beecher Is, uh, is that also the na- why, what the name of the prostitute in Jericho w- would've meant? It would've meant proud one?

Dan McClellan Um, no, no. The n- the names are, um, are spelled differently.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan So, um, yeah.

Dan Beecher They're not in my book. They're spelled the same in mine.

Dan McClellan Well, uh, remember when I talked about hesed?

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan And you've got the he?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Well, the, the sex worker from Jericho, um, or the linen maker from, from Jericho, I think the, I think the description of her profession differs, but that's-

Dan Beecher Oh

Dan McClellan ... Rahab-

Dan Beecher Oh, okay

Dan McClellan ... with a, with a het, whereas Rahav with just a he is what's-

Dan Beecher Oh

Dan McClellan ... going on with the monster.

Dan Beecher Hey.

Dan McClellan Hey. So it's not, "Hey, girl," it's, "Hey, monster." It's- ... het girl.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, um, yeah. But, uh, but yeah, Rahab is, uh, or Rach, uh, Rahav, excuse me, is the monster, which leaves us with the, the other one that, uh, a lot of people think is a, is a dinosaur. That would be Behemoth.

Dan Beecher Well, I, what's funny is I haven't heard dinosaur, but I have heard hippopotamus.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, uh, Behemoth, Behemoth, finally we're, we've got mostly a land critter.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh-

Dan McClellan This is at, I s-

Dan Beecher So let's, let's talk about Behemoth.

Dan McClellan Yeah. One, one of my favorite jokes that I've seen on Twitter from a, from a Bible scholar was they were like, "The Book of Job is basically like Job is like, 'Why is there so much suffering?' And God says, 'How dare you speak that way to the inventor of the hippopotamus?'" And, um-

Dan Beecher Which, which is not wrong. That is-

Dan McClellan It's not. It's not that wrong. But, um, when we go to Job 40:15, we have, "Look at Behemoth- Consider the behemoth of the fields.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's certainly what that is.

Dan McClellan It says, "Which I made just as I made you. It eats grass like an ox. Its strength is in its loins, and its power in the muscles of its belly. It makes its tail stiff like a cedar. The sinews of its thighs are knit together. Its bones are tubes of bronze. Its limbs, like bars of iron. It is the first of the great acts of God. Only its maker can approach it with the sword. For the mountains yield food for it, where all the wild animals play. Under the lotus plants it lies. In the covert of the reeds and in the marsh, the lotus trees cover it for shade. The willows of the wadi surround it. Even if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened. It is confident, though Jordan rushes against its mouth. Can one take it with hooks or pierce its nose with a snare?" And then it goes on to talk about Leviathan.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But,

Dan Beecher yeah. It's such a weird argument. Uh, first of all, talk to me about, uh, i- about it being the first thing.

Dan McClellan So I, I think the majority-

Dan Beecher The first of the great acts of God.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I think the majority of scholars would probably say that behemoth is not describing a hippopotamus. It's not like this, this fantastical description of a hippopotamus. I think they would say it is a, another primordial creature, monster. And so basically, this is when God is in their, um, you know, let's-see-what-I-can-get-away-with phase, and is making fantastical beasts and where to find them. And, uh, i-... So the first great act of God might just be God is, is stretching the, their creative legs and, and just like, "Bam, look at that. Look at that thing."

Dan Beecher Look at what I did.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I, I, I, I have to admit that when I was reading the description, I imagined the, the big buffalo from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Dan McClellan Ah. W-

Dan Beecher The, the six-legged giant buffalo thing. I... It... 'Cause it seem... 'Cause unlike Leviathan and Rahab, uh, thi- this one seems kinda gentle. It's ju- I mean, like, it's really, really strong, but it's just chilling under the, under the, the lotus plants.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. It, it's just laying in the river. Um-

Dan Beecher Eating, eating, uh, grass like an ox. It just seems nice. I s- I like, I like behemoth.

Dan McClellan I, I wanna point out something interesting about, for, particularly for people who say this is some kind of sauropod or something like that.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Um, verses 16 and 17, "Its strength is in its loins, and its power in the muscles of its belly. It makes its tail stiff like a cedar. The sinews of its thighs are knit together." So we've got four different clauses here.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan And they're all parallel. We're, we got couplets, two repeated couplets. Um, and so we've got a reference to loins, a reference to muscles of the belly, a reference to a tail, and then a reference to thighs.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Now, we're, we're kind of homed in on a particular part of this animal.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan But what's funny is the word that is, um, translated in, uh, in most translations tail might not mean tail.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan It, uh, can also, it could be used metaphorically to mean penis.

Dan Beecher Oh. Oh.

Dan McClellan So, which, which a lot of scholars would say is, um, is more appropriate to the context, 'cause we've got loins, m- belly, penis, thighs. Uh, and what does it do with, with its zanav? It makes it stiff like a cedar.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So I think the, what, what the author of Job is, for whatever reason- ... um, kind of affixed on, uh, might be something other than, uh, how wiggly and big its tail is.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, uh, so that, that's a s- strike against, I would say, the people who try to identify this as a sauropod. I, I cannot account for sauropod, uh, penile qualities.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan So, you know, but, um, but I don't think that part of the passage is about its tail.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because... And, and, you know, additionally, who's like, "Check out how stiff I can make my tail."

Dan Beecher Boioioioing.

Dan McClellan Check that out. You could stand on that. Um, yeah, I, I don't know that that means anything, uh, in, in the ancient world.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And also, a hippopotamus doesn't really have much of a, a-

Dan Beecher I-

Dan McClellan ... a stiff tail, so.

Dan Beecher I cannot comment on the, uh- ... the cedar-like tails of hippos.

Dan McClellan But it, it doesn't really match... If, if you look at all the details, it doesn't match any animal that we know about. So-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... which i- which is why, most likely, this is one guy's just kind of fever dream about this, uh, maybe it's another kind of dream, uh, about this- ... this fantastical beast that is, uh, among the, the first great works of God.

Dan Beecher Well, yeah, I mean, the, the, the invention of m- mythical beasts is, uh, goes back thousands and thousands of years, and crops up in almost every society that we have any records for.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's just a thing that humans do.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher They invent crazy, big, fantastical critters, and, uh, and then talk about them. Yeah. I mean,

Dan McClellan we, we still do it down to today-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... in our, in our, in the Harry Potter stuff, and the-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... fantastical, Fantastic Beasts and, and Where to Find Them. And even in, uh, what did, uh, what did I watch with my family, I think it was called Sketch?

Dan Beecher I loved

Dan McClellan Sketch. Which was a... You liked it? Yeah. Yeah, it was-

Dan Beecher I thought it was a great... It was a super fun movie.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I was, I was surprised it didn't do better.

Dan McClellan I, I thought it was a, it was a great movie. The m- the... It was, it was heavier than I thought it was gonna be, but-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... but I, I think poignant. Um, and so, but yeah, it's all about beasts that a, that a child is imagining-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... uh, and drawing. So yeah, it's something we've done forever. We, we go back to medieval, uh, the medieval periods and, and we've got, you know, knights. What did they go out and do? They went out and they slew a dragon.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And, uh, and, and won the hand of the fair maiden kind of, kind of stuff.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, uh, th- this is, uh, this goes all the way back to, to hoary antiquity, to the days of old when-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... when God my King was working salvation in the earth by killing that animal over there. Uh, and, and there are others. Uh, the, you know, when we go back to the Ugaritic literature, you've got other kind of monstrous-y, uh, characters. Tannin, uh, these are the sea creatures. They're, uh... that are, we see them in the, uh, they're whales or the great sea creatures that are mentioned in a bunch of places in the, in the Hebrew Bible. Yam Yamu was, uh, uh, was the, the sea in, uh, the Ugaritic literature, which was a deity that was associated with the sea and, and the, uh, the storm deity has to do battle with Yamu and, uh, and, and with Mot. Mot apen, op- apens, opens up his maw to, um- ... to consume Baal, uh, which is representative of death. So, like, it, there's, there's mythology in the Bible.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Like, you can, you can not like it all you want but it's very clearly there.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And these, and these three monsters are just part of that mythology. They, they get worked into a more, um, a, a worldview that is, is trying to figure out how to make it seem like God is the only divine being out there. But, but these are primordial divine chaos monsters, um, like quite clearly.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, uh, that's amazing and interesting. If you, like us, are chaos monsters and you want to get the word out about our kind, you can- ... share this with your family and friends. Have some fun with it. Uh, you can also help us keep the, our stuff going by going over to, uh, patreon.com/dataoverdogma and joining up there. You give us a little bit of your money, and you can get in return, uh, depending on what level you sign up at, you can get early and ad-free versions of every episode. You can also get our, uh, patrons only content that is the, we call it the after party, and it happens every week. Uh, and it's a lot of fun. So we encourage you to go there. Otherwise, like, comment, subscribe, do whatever you can. Uh, leave us a five-star review on your various pod blasters. We really appreciate it when that happens. And, uh, uh, thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing. Thanks to Sam for being our right-hand man. And thanks to all of you for tuning in. We'll talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye everybody.