The tannin sea monsters The monster
tannin in the
Hebrew Bible has been translated as Greek
kētos in the
Septuagint, and
cetus in the
Latin Vulgate.
Tanninim () (-im denotes Hebraic plural) appear in the Hebrew
Book of Genesis,
Exodus,
Deuteronomy,
Psalms,
Job,
Ezekiel,
Isaiah, and
Jeremiah. They are explicitly listed among the creatures created by
God on the
fifth day of the
Genesis creation narrative, The Septuagint renders the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:21 (
hattanninim haggedolim) as (
kētē ta megala) in Greek, and this was in turn translated as
cete grandia in the Vulgate. The tannin is listed in the
apocalypse of Isaiah as among the sea beasts to be slain by
Yahweh "on that day", translated in the King James Version as "the
dragon".
Conflation with Leviathan and Rahab In
Jewish mythology, Tannin is sometimes conflated with the related sea monsters
Leviathan and
Rahab.
Joseph Eddy Fontenrose noted that "cetus" was a counterpart of
Tiamat-based Medusa, and was modelled after
Yam and
Mot and Leviathan.
Jonah's "great fish" In
Jonah 1:17 (in Christian Bibles; 2:1 in the Jewish Tanakh), the Hebrew text reads
dag gadol (), which literally means "great fish". The
Septuagint translates this phrase into Greek as
mega kētos (). This was at the start of more widespread depiction of real whales in Greece and
kētos would cover proven whales, sharks and the old meaning of curious sea monsters.
Jerome later translated this phrase as
piscis grandis in his Latin
Vulgate. However, he translated the Greek word
kētos as
cetus in
Gospel of Matthew 12:40. The NIV opts for the former:
"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." In contrast, the KJV has "whale". ==In other cultures==