Dragonslaying in the Ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Texts

Presented by: Robert Miller of the Catholic University of America

A motif of dragonslaying, at times a mere metaphor, at times seemingly the subject of a narrative itself, appears several times in the Hebrew Bible. Scholars have long known this drew on Ancient Near Eastern antecedents, but sorting out the Canaanite from the Babylonian has never been easy. Understanding these non-Israelite backgrounds to the image, however, is key to understanding the biblical and post-biblical texts.

Robert Miller holds a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, and is currently associate professor of Old Testament at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, as well as an affiliate of the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland.