People have long been captivated by stories of dragons. Myths related to dragon slaying can be found across many civilizations around the world, even among the most ancient cultures including ancient Israel. In his book The Dragon, the Mountain, and the Nations, Robert Miller chronicles the trajectories and transformations of this myth, and brings out the ma ... Show More
Yesterday
Robin Whelan, "Serving the Christian State in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
How did the state become Christian in late antiquity? Many scholars have traced the Christianization of the Roman world in the centuries following the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 312 CE. Robin Whelan, however, turns his attention away from the usual suspects in such ... Show More
1h 14m
Jan 2022
Dragons Exist In Nearly Every Culture’s Mythology As a Mirror of Their Fears. What Are Ours?
We live in the golden age of dragons – they appear in Game of Thrones, most film adaptations of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, and nearly everything tangentially related to fantasy. They date back millennia, appearing in every cultures mythology, from ancient Greece and India to me ... Show More
50m 18s
Aug 2023
The First Worldwide Meme – Chaos Dragon E2
<p>When we read the word “myth,” often what comes to mind is a fictional story. However, a myth is a way of exploring universal concerns of human existence, using symbols for things we may or may not have words to describe. The dragon is one such myth—a symbol humans have used fo ... Show More
49m 18s
Oct 2023
Does the Dragon Sometimes Win? – Chaos Dragon E13
<p>In the story of the Bible, the dragon is a recurring symbol of chaos, death, and destruction. The good news is, Yahweh is the dragon slayer, and he gives humans power over the dragon too. But in the Bible—and in our own lives—we can encounter stories like Job’s. The scroll of ... Show More
59m 31s
May 2021
Robert D. Miller II, "Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God" (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021)
Recognizing the absence of a God named Yahweh outside of ancient Israel, this study addresses the related questions of Yahweh's origins and the biblical claim that there were Yahweh-worshipers other than the Israelite people. Beginning with the Hebrew Bible, with an exhaustive su ... Show More
25m 14s
Sep 2023
Women Who Slayed Dragons – Chaos Dragon E6
<p>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 ... Show More
50m 1s
Jul 2023
Dragons in the Bible – Chaos Dragon E1
<p><i> Nahash</i>, <i>tanin</i>, <i>leviathan</i>––the Bible is full of strange words describing a creature many modern readers can’t quite categorize. All these words are ways of referring to a monster of the deep, a dragon. In this episode, Tim and Jon kick off a brand new them ... Show More
46m 3s