BibleProject

The theme of the chaos dragon raises some challenging questions. For instance, if God created a perfect world and humans messed it up, why did the dragon and the chaos waters exist at the beginning of the universe? Why would God allow the potential for chaos at all? In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss God’s goodness and the existence of evil, through the lens of the chaos dragon theme.

The story of Jonah employs all the major motifs of the theme of the chaos dragon: chaotic waters, a servant of God who rebels against him, and a great sea monster. But the story doesn't call it a sea monster—the story calls it a great fish! Join Tim and Jon as they discuss Jonah, thrown into the deep abyss and swallowed up by death, and the reality that even the belly of the beast is no match for Yahweh.

When Israel chooses to act like the chaos monster instead of living like the people of God, God brings judgment on them. How? He sends other bigger monsters after them, namely, Babylon and Egypt. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss the scrolls of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and their focus on the dragon-like behavior of these three nations––as well as God’s promise to bring about justice for each and every dragon in the end.

What happens when the entire nation of Israel consistently aligns themselves with the dragon? They themselves become a chaos monster Yahweh has to deal with. In this episode, Tim and Jon explore the scroll of Isaiah and the prophet’s indictment of Israel for choices that betray the image and blessing of God they were meant to bring to the world.

So often the symbol of the chaos monster shows up embodied by a human bent on oppressing other people. Goliath, one of the Bible’s most well-known bad guys, is depicted as having scaly armor like a snake and defying not just Israel, but Yahweh. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss the theme of the dragon in the story of David and Goliath.

In today’s episode, we once again encounter a theme that’s becoming all too familiar: humans becoming chaos monsters. Jabin, king of Canaan, and Sisera, the commander of his army, are depicted as serpents in Judges 4, and the humans who overcome these two dragons are two women, Deborah and Jael. Join Tim and Jon as they explore the theme of the dragon in the scroll of Judges.

Was Cain’s city a good thing initially? If Israel was just as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah, why didn’t God destroy it too? And how will God redeem the city in the new creation? In this episode, Tim and Jon respond to your questions from the second half of The City series. Thank you to our audience for your insightful questions!

God created humans to bear his image, but sometimes we choose our own destruction and start to look a lot more like chaos monsters instead. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss a human who the prophets frequently called a sea dragon: the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt and enslaved Israel in the scroll of Exodus. If Pharaoh is the seed of the serpent, who is the seed of the woman in Exodus? Listen in to find out!

Genesis 3 is probably the most famous serpent-featuring story in the Bible—the moment we get to see humans and the nahash interact for the first time. Because the serpent lures the humans into choosing their own demise, it’s also the moment Yahweh announces that the seed (descendant) of the serpent will remain a rival to the seed of the woman. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss Genesis 3-4 and talk about what happens when humans themselves start to act like the chaos monster.

Dragons show up on page one of the Bible, named among the beings that feature in the seven-day creation narrative in Genesis 1. God creates dragons to inhabit the chaos waters, and we meet one early on that tries (and succeeds) to get the first humans to choose their own destruction. Why would God create these creatures? What is their purpose? Join Tim and Jon as they talk about the literary function of dragons in the Bible.