>>7532492
ALL ALLEGORICAL
Seriously.
These were physical beings, not actual serpents or whatever, but humanoid.
The thing about symbolism and allegory is that it encompasses many, many meanings in one word/symbol/symbolic object.
Tiamat was a person. (female)
Tiamat was a watery planet (the one that was destroyed which blew off Mars' atmosphere and scarred the surface)
Think outside of a specific semitic book's context - zoom out like you're standing on the moon looking at the Earth. That specific context is not only broken, distorted and disjointed it's all out of order and remixed to not resemble actual history. It's portrayal of the symbolic is deeply flawed and incorrect.
The older is closer, but it has to be read and understood outside that group of semites' particular book. (separate and distinct, analyzed on its own)