In Canaan, too, stories were told of how gods had fought with dragons and sea serpents – and thereby demonstrated their worthiness to rule the heavens. Such a conceit was, to the writers of Genesis, a nonsense and a blasphemy; and so it was, in their account of the Creation, that they made sure to specify that Elohim had fashioned, not fought with, the creatures of the deep. ‘And God created the sea monsters.’
