Tool Beta
The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
The dragon
The beast of Revelation, identified there as the serpent, the devil and Satan all at once.
Revelation 12:3-17, in every translation this tool compares.
Revelation stops and tells you who this is: the dragon, the ancient serpent, the devil, Satan, all one figure. The tail that sweeps a third of the stars is describing his following, not reporting a prehistoric fall that happened before the book opens.
Thirteen occurrences, all in one book. Revelation 12:9 states the identification outright, and the tail that sweeps a third of the stars describes his following; it doesn't report a prehistoric fall. DDD (J. W. van Henten) reads Revelation 12 as combining at least two traditions: an older myth of a dragon-like god pursuing a pregnant goddess, the kind of combat myth also behind the Greek Python story and possibly echoing the Ugaritic story of Athtar trying to seize Baal's throne, and the Genesis 6 story of the fallen Watchers (1 Enoch 6-11). Outside Revelation, drakon in the Septuagint regularly translates ordinary Hebrew words for sea monsters and serpents (Leviathan at Isaiah 27:1, tannin in several places), and it is used against Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon to discredit the nations that oppressed Israel (Ezekiel 29:3; 32:2), the same rhetorical move Revelation makes against Rome.
G1404 (δράκων), 13 occ in 12 verses, all in Revelation
"Satan took a third of the angels with him" as an event narrated in Scripture. Revelation 12:4 is a vision of the end, and the arithmetic is imported.
- Revelation 12:3-17
- Revelation 13:2-4
- Revelation 16:13
- Revelation 20:2
- Isaiah 27:1
- Ezekiel 29:3
- Ezekiel 32:2
- J. W. van Henten, "Dragon," DDD, 265-266
