EP: 377 The Dragon in Eden: Monsters, Chaos, and Humanity with Dr. Manny Arango

Blurry Creatures

Nature, Christianity, Science, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Manny Arango, New Testament scholar and author of "Crushing Chaos," joins us to explore the biblical monsters we've sanitized out of our modern understanding of Scripture. From the dragon in Eden to Leviathan in Job, Manny argues we've fallen victim to the "lullaby effect"—becoming so familiar with these stories that we've missed their jarring, supernatural elements.In this fascinating conversation, Manny reveals why the talking serpent in Eden was likely a dragon, why God describes Leviathan to Job in excruciating detail, and how Jesus' ministry was fundamentally about conquering chaos monsters. But the real twist? Manny argues that humans can become the monsters—that the Bible's greatest concern isn't external beasts, but our own potential to devolve into chaos.From ancient Near Eastern mythology to modern anxiety, this episode explores how biblical monster stories are actually roadmaps for retaining our humanity in a world designed to make us beastly. Manny's insights on chaos versus sin, the nature of humanity, and Jesus as the ultimate dragon-slayer offer a fresh perspective on spiritual warfare and what it means to stay human in a chaotic world. This episode is sponsored by: https://preborn.com/blurry — Dial #250 and say the keyword BABY or visit the link. Just $28 can help save a life! https://rocketmoney.com/blurry — Reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. The average person saves up to $740 a year when using all the app’s premium features! https://uncommongoods.com/blurry — Shop early to get 15% off your next gift! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a chaos creature that's probably a dragon who's in the garden with Adam and Eve.
0:05.3	And the chaos dragon is trying to recruit human agents to be agents of chaos as opposed to agents of order.
0:14.3	And the big, I guess, maybe curveball of this book is that we became the monsters.
0:23.0	You want to know what's scarier than Leviathan?
0:29.0	Humans who are full of chaos. You want to know the scariest monster movies?
0:35.1	Zombie movies, man, because humans are the worst monsters. When humans become monsters,
0:43.0	you get the walking dead. And that's what I think that's the story the Bible's trying to tell, is that guess what's freaking scarier than any chaos dragon, it's humans that have been infected with chaos and then become monsters
0:50.9	themselves.
0:52.5	The history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine.
0:57.8	The Smithsonian, that if they found out about a large skeleton somewhere, was to go get it.
1:05.7	I'm going to assume at least one person is right, because if one person's right to bust the paradigm it all goes back to
1:12.6	the fallen chair and the problem with the modern day church they have a very truncated view of
1:17.3	supernatural this backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning associated with this
1:22.9	Mount Hermon event and this guy defects from the kingdom.
1:31.3	That's a big deal.
1:33.3	All right, welcome welcome back to blurry creatures.
1:48.1	We're here in the basement with our new friend, Dr. Manny O'Rango.
1:53.0	And you're a preacher, Bible teacher, author, and you have a new book out, which is very blurry,
2:00.5	with the dragon on the cover called Crushing Chaos, and you have a new book out which is very blurry with the dragon on the cover called crushing chaos
2:03.9	and you delve into monster stories of the Bible.
2:07.8	Nothing is more blurrier than that.
2:10.1	Welcome to the podcast.
	...

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