Lotan ( Ugaritic: 𐎍𐎚𐎐''-ltn'', transliterated ''Lôtān'', ''Litan'', or ''Litānu'', meaning "coiled") is a servant of the

sea god A water deity is a deity in mythology associated with water or various bodies of water. Water deities are common in mythology and were usually more important among civilizations in which the sea or ocean, or a great river was more important. Anoth ...

Yam defeated by the storm god Hadad-Baʿal in the Ugaritic '' Baal Cycle''. Lotan seems to have been prefigured by the serpent ''Têmtum'' represented in Syrian seals of the 18th–16th century BC, and finds a later reflex in the sea monster '' Leviathan'', whose defeat at the hands of

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he posse ...

is alluded to in the

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

Book of Job The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...

and in

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...

27:1. Lambert (2003) went as far as the claim that

27:1 is a direct quote lifted from the Ugaritic text, correctly rendering Ugaritic ''bṯn'' "snake" as Hebrew ''nḥš'' "snake". ''Lotan'' (''ltn'') is an adjectival formation meaning "coiled", here used as a proper name; the same creature has a number of possible epitheta, including "the fugitive serpent" (''bṯn brḥ'') and maybe (with some uncertainty deriving from manuscript lacunae) "the wriggling serpent" (''bṯn ʿqltn'') and "the mighty one with seven heads" (''šlyṭ d.šbʿt rašm''). The myth of Hadad defeating Lotan, Yahweh defeating Leviathan, Marduk defeating Tiamat (etc.) in the mythologies of the Ancient Near East are classical examples of the '' Chaoskampf'' mytheme, also reflected in

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''D� ...

' slaying of

Typhon Typhon (; grc, Τυφῶν, Typhôn, ), also Typhoeus (; grc, Τυφωεύς, Typhōeús, label=none), Typhaon ( grc, Τυφάων, Typháōn, label=none) or Typhos ( grc, Τυφώς, Typhṓs, label=none), was a monstrous serpentine giant an ...

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...

's struggle against Jörmungandr in the Gylfaginning portion of the

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been t ...

, and the

vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

battle between

Indra Indra (; Sanskrit: इन्द्र) is the king of the devas (god-like deities) and Svarga (heaven) in Hindu mythology. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. volumes/ref> I ...

and

Vritra Vritra () is a danava in Hinduism. He serves as the personification of drought, and is an adversary of the king of the devas, Indra. As a danava, he belongs to the race of the asuras. Vritra is also known in the Vedas as Ahi (Sanskrit: ', li ...

(from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

वृत्र, ''vṛtrá,'' meaning ''enveloper'', ''cover'' and therefore ''obstacle'') who is accused as a dragon of hoarding the waters and the rains, as a ''dasa'' of stealing cows, and as an anti-god of hiding the Sun, concentrating on Vritra several

demonization Demonization or demonisation is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally by the monotheistic and henotheistic ones. The term has since been expanded to refer to any characterization of individ ...

processes, the pattern of good versus evil, darkness versus light (hiding the Sun), and comparisons to forces of nature and monsters whose tentacles span the earth. The Litani River that winds through the

Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley ( ar, links=no, وادي البقاع, ', Lebanese ), also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ, and Becaa and known in classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanon's most important ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

is named after Lotan as the river was believed to be the personification of the god.Price, Robert. ''Bart Ehrman Interpreted''. Pitchstone Publishing, Durham, NC. 2018, page 153

References

Literature

* . * . * . * * . Leviathan Mythological aquatic creatures Legendary serpents Mythological monsters Dragons Chaos gods Levantine mythology {{MEast-myth-stub

See also

References

Literature