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Bible Dictionaries
Dragon
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (δράκων)
The word is found in the NT only in Revelation 12:3-17; Revelation 13:2; Revelation 13:4; Revelation 13:11; Revelation 16:13; Revelation 20:2. In each case, with the exception of 13:11 (‘as a dragon’), the reference is to the symbolical ‘great red dragon’ with seven heads and ten horns (12:3) who is expressly identified with ‘the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan’ (v. 9; cf. 20:2). When inquiry is made into the origin and meaning of the symbolism, it becomes evident that what we find in Rev. is an adoption and application to Christian purposes of certain conceptions that played a large part in the literature of pre-Christian Judaism, and had originally been suggested to the Jewish mind by its contact with the Babylonian mythology. The Apocryphal book of Bel and the Dragon testifies to the existence in Babylon of a dragon-worship that must have been associated with belief in the ancient dragon-myth which forms so important a feature of the Babylonian cosmogony. In the Creation-epic Tiâmat is the power of chaos and darkness, personified as a gigantic dragon or monster of the deep, who is eventually overcome by Marduk, the god of light. In the post-exilic Jewish apocalyptic literature a dragon of the depths becomes the representative of the forces of evil and opposition to goodness and God. But it was characteristic of Judaism, with its fervent Messianic expectations, that the idea of a conflict between God and the dragon should be transferred from the past to the future, from cosmogony to history and eschatology, so that the revolt of the dragon and his subjection by the Divine might became an episode not of pre-historic ages but of the last days (cf. Isaiah 21:1, Daniel 7:3). In Rev. the visions of non-canonical as well as canonical apocalyptists have been freely made use of; and the Jewish features of the story of the dragon are apparent (cf. Revelation 12:7 with Eth. Enoch, xx. 5, Assumption of Moses, x. 2). But what is characteristic is that the figure and functions of the dragon are turned to Christian uses, so that they have a bearing upon Christ’s earthly birth and heavenly glory (Revelation 12:5), upon the present conflict of Christianity with the world’s evil powers and its victory over them by ‘the blood of the Lamb’ and ‘the testimony of Jesus Christ’ (Revelation 12:11; Revelation 12:13; Revelation 12:17), and above all upon the assurance of Christian faith that God will destroy the dragon’s present power to accuse His people and persecute them even unto death (Revelation 12:10-11; Revelation 12:13; Revelation 12:17), and will at the appointed time send forth His angel to subdue him utterly (Revelation 20:1-3).
Literature.-H. Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos, Göttingen, 1895; W. Bousset, The Antichrist Legend, Eng. translation , London, 1896; article ‘Dragon’ in Encyclopaedia Biblica .
J. C. Lambert.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Dragon'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/d/dragon.html. 1906-1918.
