Living creatures (Bible)

References to the sacred creatures recur in texts of Second Temple Judaism, in rabbinical merkabah ("chariot") literature, in the Book of Revelation in the Christian New Testament, and in the Zohar.

Comparing the living creatures in Ezekiel with Revelation's is a prominent apocalyptic study in Western Christianity.

[9] William D. Mounce noted a belief that the living creatures may have been associated with the four principal (or fixed) signs of the zodiac (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius),[5][8] but other scholars have doubted this interpretation.

[quote 1] In a critical analysis of John's vision, April De Conick's 2006 essay outlines that the hayyot in Ezekiel are perhaps not original with the author of Revelation.

De Conick suggests that John may have drawn from other merkabah-related texts and by subtly working with images already known to his audience, he reshaped them for his own purposes.

Throughout church history, the most common interpretation (first laid out by Victorinus), but not the original or the only, is that the lion represents Mark, the calf Luke, the man Matthew, and the eagle John.

Irenaeus was the first to make the association with the evangelists, but the interpretation laid out by Victorinus and adopted by Jerome, Gregory the Great, and the Book of Kells became dominant.

[17] A traditional view is that the four faces (Revelation 4:6-8) refer to the many aspects (or attributes) of Jesus Christ as depicted in the four Gospels.

Each face represents a different aspect of His personality, role, and mission, and together they form a complete picture of who Jesus is and what He has done for us.

Another view found in a popular Greek Orthodox Catechism, is that the living creatures represent four covenants given to mankind.