Dragons
[ranking: 8]
"And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years." - Revelation 20:2
Dragons are mentioned by name several times in the Bible, and are conflated with a number of other creatures throughout, including sea monsters (including the Leviathan), and are thought to be derived from crocodiles.
Dragons appear in the mythology of several ancient and medieval cultures. It's possible early man attempted to explain the discovery of dinosaur fossils with the dragon myth. There are also numerous works of art depicting Saint George slaying a dragon. The Bible is a historical time capsule of the beliefs of its day, and it would have been more shocking if dragons didn't make an appearance.
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The Behemoth
[ranking: 9]
??Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron." - Job 40:15-24
According to Job, the Behemoth was the first creation of God, an enormous creature of tremendous power. It has also been described as a "primeval monster of chaos, defeated by Yahweh at the beginning of the process of creation," much like the Leviathan.
Historians believe the Behemoth could have been modeled on, or even be a hyperbolic description of, an elephant or hippopotamus.
Leviathan
[ranking: 4]
"In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea." - Isaiah 27:1
The Leviathan was a fierce, serpentine sea monster with multiple heads that ran amok in the Old Testament; a sea monster mentioned in Revelations may be a permutation of it. The monster's defeat at the hands of God preceded creation, making it a beast of chaos.
The creature is a prime early example of sea creatures that became increasingly prevalent as mankind took to the high seas, sailing to far away destinations. Centuries later, Sir Humphrey Gilbert would detail seeing a creature in the sea that resembled a lion.
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Nephilim
[ranking: 7]
"And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them." - Number 13:33
The Nephilim are demigods born of the sons of God and the daughters of man. Described as giants, they once roamed the Earth. As mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4:
"When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, 'My spirit shall not abide[a] in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.' The Nephilim were on the earth in those days??and also afterward??when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown."
Some interpret "sons of God" to mean fallen ones, such as Lucifer, while other assume them to be sons of Seth, while men are the offspring of Cain.
Giants
[ranking: 11]
"And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze." - 1 Samuel 17:1-58
There are giants all over the Bible, the most famous of which is Goliath, who fell to David. The Amorites, a race of giants, are mentioned more than 80 times, including this tasty quote from Amos 2:9?C10:
"Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. Also it was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite."
Biblical scholars estimate the height of these monsters at anywhere from six to 30 feet. If the Amorites were really as tall as cedars, it's possible they stood 50 to 100 feet tall. Another example of giants in the bible, from Deuteronomy 2:10?C11:
"The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. They were also regarded as giants [Hebrew rephaim], like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim"
The Second Beast
[ranking: 2]
"Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon." - Revelation 13:11
The Second Beast was said to come out of the Earth after the First Beast emerged from the sea. This creature isn't as well described as other biblical monsters, though had awesome powers: "And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people."
The Second Beast is most notable for being credited with creating the mark of the beast, emblazoning it on people, and directing humanity to follow the First Beast. This mark of the beast is believed to identify followers of the First Beast, who may be the antichrist.
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