Eisenbrauns, an imprint of PSU Press, is happy to announce the publication of the latest book in the Explorations in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations series:

The Dragon, the Mountain, and the Nations:

An Old Testament Myth, Its Origins, and Its Afterlives, by Robert D. Miller II

$64.95 | Hardcover Edition

ISBN: 978-1-57506-479-6

408 pages 6”x9”

https://www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles/978-1-57506-479-6.html

The dragon-slaying myth has a hoary ancestry, extending back long before its appearance in the Hebrew Bible, and a vast range, spanning as far as India and perhaps even Japan. This book is a chronicle of its trajectories and permutations. The target of this study is the biblical myth. This target, however, is itself a fluid tradition, responding to and reworking extrabiblical myths and reworking its own myths. In this study, Robert Miller examines the dragon and dragon-slaying myth throughout India, the proto-Indo-European cultures, and Iran, and among the Hittites as well as other ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian traditions, and then throughout the Bible, including Genesis, the Psalms, Daniel, and ultimately the New Testament and the book of Revelation. He shows how the myth pervades many cultures and many civilizations and that the dragon is always conquered, despite its many manifestations. In his conclusion, Miller points out the importance of the myth as a hermeneutic for understanding key parts of biblical literature.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part I: East of Ginger Trees

1. India

2. Proto-Indo-Europeans

3. A Global Myth?

4. Iran

Part II: The Matter of the North

5. Hittites

6. Hurrian Influence

7. From the Libraries of Ugarit

8. Myths of Mesopotamia

Part III: Canaanite Epic and Hebrew Myth 9. The Old Testament: Overview 10. The Psalms 11. Genesis 12. The Rest of the Old Testament 13. Greek Traditions 14. Daniel 15. Second Temple Jewish Texts

Part IV: Naming the Dragon Slayer

16. The New Testament

Conclusions

Appendix

Bibliography

Indexes