Dinosaurs In The Bible

[SilentLoner]

Dinosaurs In The Bible:

 

If dinosaurs and people lived at the same time, shouldn't the Bible talk about dinosaurs?

 

Yes -- and it does. Dinosaurs are one of the most frequently mentioned animals in the Bible. The only thing is, the word dinosaur is not used.

 

The word "dinosaur" was not invented until 1841. It could not be used by early translators of the Bible. For example, the King James Version translation was completed in 1611, over 200 years before the word "dinosaur" was created.

 

 

Is there another word for dinosaur that is used in the Bible?

Yes! Here are a few verses:

"...and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." - Malachi 1:3 (KJV)

"...they snuffed up the wind like dragons." - Jereniah 14:6 (KJV)

"...and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." - Isaiah 27:1 (KJV)

The word is dragon. It's interesting to note that people around the world have similar stories about "dragons"... and the descriptions of "dragons" are similar in all cultures... and those descriptions basically match what we think dinosaurs look like.

 

 

When the Bible talks about dragons, it is talking about what we now call dinosaurs.

Here's a detailed description from Job 40:15-19

"Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is chief of the ways of God."

 

What is behemoth?

This is the largest (chief) land animal God made. Some Bible translators have said behemoth may be an elephant or hippopotomus. But both of those have small tails, not a tail that moves like a cedar tree.

The problem is that we limit ourselves to animals that are alive today, and none of those fit this description. What best fits the description is a Brachiosaurus--the largest of the dinosaurs. A dinosaur with a giant tail that was like a cedar, and huge legs that must have had the strength of brass and iron in order to support his enormous body. Brachiosaurus was 75 feet in length, 41 feet in height, and weighed 89 tons--as much as 12 African bull elphants. This was a true behemoth!

Yes, the Bible talks about dinosaurs. They are mentioned in the Bible nearly more times than any other animal.

 

Someone posted this on another forum I frequent. How stupid can believers get?

[FeelHappy]

haha I remember when I used to do the exact same thing.

[Guest Valk0010]

Of course this is presupposes, that the bible authors were telling the truth in the sense we know of it today. Dragons are usually reserved for myth.

[Kurari]

Of course, people back in Biblical days could NEVER have found dinosaur bones and created some stories about it. Nope. Nuh-uh.

 

Poor, pitiful believers. Living proof that evolution does not benefit everyone.

[JoeCoastie]

Pitiful thing is that is man and dinosaur co-existed we'd have evidence of them. If a culture lived with dinosaurs, archeologists would find bones, claws, and skins among the ruins, and in burials. We'd find pictures of them on cave walls as we've seen Mammoths. Men in every culture have utilized and recorded the beasts among them. The fascination is natural. When the snow melts and RVers from the lower 48 arrive, they'll be chasing bears to get a photo.

[hereticzero]

Christians do not like to discuss the fact their holy book is based upon the existence of mythological animals. If they acknowledged the fact their book was written by ignorant people who believed in mythological animals, then they would have to admit the bible is not god inspired and only a work of fiction. Bible revisions have tried to change the names of such mythological creatures such as unicornes, cockatrices, fauns, and satyrs, into modern animals. If the bible had been god inspired I think god would have told the writers what the correct names of the animals were. This is a big contradiction in modern bibles that were changed. The mythological animals were written of because to people in those early years these animals were very real and to me it proves the bible is a book of mythology.

[JoeCoastie]

Yet your "King James Only" Christians have a fit when people start taking unicorns out of the Bible.

[Thought2Much]

I have yet to see an image of a dragon from any ancient culture that actually looks anything like a species of dinosaur that we know to have existed. They are always amalgams of other animals, or they look like serpents with legs, which no species of dinosaur resembled in the slightest. Cave drawings of mammoths and other animals are unmistakably what they are meant to represent. In the same way, the shape of a tyrannosaurus rex is also unmistakable. So is the shape of a parasauropholis. And so are any of the sauropods, ankylosaurs, or stegosaurs. Yet, not one of these species is represented in any ancient art that I have ever seen. If any of these animals existed while humans were around, there would be at least one image of the things, since they would be far more difficult to ignore than elephants, rhinos, and hell, cows, which we have plenty of damn images of.

[midniterider]

Pitiful thing is that is man and dinosaur co-existed we'd have evidence of them. If a culture lived with dinosaurs, archeologists would find bones, claws, and skins among the ruins, and in burials. We'd find pictures of them on cave walls as we've seen Mammoths. Men in every culture have utilized and recorded the beasts among them. The fascination is natural. When the snow melts and RVers from the lower 48 arrive, they'll be chasing bears to get a photo.

 

Ain't you seen the Flintstones? :-)

[LivingLife]

New word for YEC Yabadabbadoos

 

"Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyabba-dabba-doooooooo!"

Flintstones... Meet the Flintstones,

They're a modern stoneage family.

From the town of Bedrock,

They're a page right out of history.

Let's ride with the family down the street.

Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet.

When you're with the Flintstones,

have a yabba dabba doo time,

a dabba doo time,

we'll have a gay old time

 

Whoops!

[nebula]

Gerald Schroeder argues the creation of dinosaurs is mentioned in Genesis 1:21. It's point number 4. on here: http://geraldschroed...giousMyths.aspx but he doesn't claim they lived concurrently with humans.

 

He's most famous for his idea that the six days of creation were literal 24 hour days that spanned 15 billion years, due to special relativity: http://geraldschroed...geUniverse.aspx

 

And here is a rebuttal to that by Mark Perakh: http://www.talkreaso...s/schroeder.cfm

[Sybaris]

 

 

Someone posted this on another forum I frequent. How stupid can believers get?

 

Right.

 

They key on the word "dragon" and use it to explain the existence of thousands of different creatures that didn't even look like a dragon.

[Positivist]

He's most famous for his idea that the six days of creation were literal 24 hour days that spanned 15 billion years, due to special relativity: http://geraldschroed...geUniverse.aspx

This is what I used to (try to) think. Bending the rules of science and time to fit an ancient myth finally broke my brain.

[♦ ficino ♦]

It wouldn't surprise me if ancient people in the Middle East saw fossilized bones and tried to imagine the animals they were from. Adrienne Mayor has a book on Greek and Roman legends of monsters, which she thinks were inspired by fossils visible on the surface. She provides an interesting example from a Greek vase of a monster with a head that looks like a prehistoric mammal. On the vase, Heracles and Hesione (I think) are shooting arrows at the monster.

 

I hope this link works:

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=MXCQKJwLGS4C&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=ancient+monsters+fossils+mayor&source=bl&ots=j4-0jwSNcL&sig=Q8E_LTW4LO5JIo9ClHjQxuulEUk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CHF4T9X0NIb20gGEt4DPDQ&ved=0CGoQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=ancient%20monsters%20fossils%20mayor&f=false

[★ Citsonga ★]

While we know that these claims are scientifically invalid, I thought it would also be worthwhile to look at them from a biblical standpoint. I went through these pretty quickly, so if I blundered something, feel free to correct me.

Is there another word for dinosaur that is used in the Bible?

Yes! Here are a few verses:

"...and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." - Malachi 1:3 (KJV)

The Hebrew term translated "dragon" there is not used anywhere else in the Bible. According to Strong's, the meaning is uncertain. The NIV translates it "jackals."

In context, Malachi 1:1-5 is talking about Israel and Edom as descendants of Jacob and Esau, and the "heritage waste" is referring to the destruction of Edom.

Creationists say that most of the dinosaurs died out in Noah's flood, and those that remained died out shortly thereafter. As such, creationists contradict themselves when they want to use much later references like this as evidence of dinosaurs.

"...they snuffed up the wind like dragons." - Jereniah 14:6 (KJV)

Here we get a Hebrew word that is more common in the Bible and is translated "dragon" quite a bit. However, it is also translated in the KJV as "serpent," "whale" and "sea monster." In this passage, the NIV once again says "jackals."

Jeremiah supposedly started his prophetic ministry during Judah's exile in Babylon (Jer 1:3), so once again we have a reference that contradicts the creationists' dinosaur timeline.

"...and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." - Isaiah 27:1 (KJV)

This uses the same Hebrew term for "dragon" as the previous passage. The NIV renders it "monster," and my NIV Study Bible text note calls it "A symbol (drawn from Canaanite myths) of wicked nations, such as Egypt...."

Anyway, Isaiah 27:1 starts off with, "In that day," which is a theme throughout Isaiah, referring to future events, so this "dragon" reference would have to be something after the Babylonian exile. Once again, it's much too late for the creationists' dinosaur timeline.

When the Bible talks about dragons, it is talking about what we now call dinosaurs.

Here's a detailed description from Job 40:15-19

"Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is chief of the ways of God."

 

What is behemoth?

This is the largest (chief) land animal God made. Some Bible translators have said behemoth may be an elephant or hippopotomus. But both of those have small tails, not a tail that moves like a cedar tree.

The problem is that we limit ourselves to animals that are alive today, and none of those fit this description. What best fits the description is a Brachiosaurus--the largest of the dinosaurs. A dinosaur with a giant tail that was like a cedar, and huge legs that must have had the strength of brass and iron in order to support his enormous body. Brachiosaurus was 75 feet in length, 41 feet in height, and weighed 89 tons--as much as 12 African bull elphants. This was a true behemoth!

The Hebrew term for "behemoth" is not used anywhere else in the Bible, though it later appeared in the apocryphal Book of Enoch. The NIV Study Bible's text note regarding behemoth says, "The word is Hebrew and means 'beast par excellence,' referring to a large land animal.... Much of the language used to describe him in vv. 16-24 is highly poetic and hyperbolic."

Of course, many creationists insist that behemoth was a real dinosaur, but they do the same thing with the "dragons" in the passages already addressed, which simply cannot be dinosaurs, even by creationists' timeline of dinosaurs. Seeing that they're glaringly wrong on those, I wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt on "behemoth."

In fact, according to my NIV Study Bible, Job supposedly lived late in the second millennium B.C. While that would place "behemoth" much earlier than the "dragons" references addressed earlier, it would still seem to be too late for the way creationists argue that dinosaurs died off not long after Noah's flood. So, we still have a problem.

Though there is some debate over whether or not "behemoth" was nothing but a mythological creature or a real animal, I found this Wikipedia tidbit interesting:

Meaning

Since the 17th century CE there have been many attempts to identify Behemoth. Some scholars have seen him as a real creature, usually the hippopotamus, although occasionally as the elephant, crocodile, water buffalo^[8] or for some creationists, a dinosaur. The reference to Behemoth's "tail" that "moves like a cedar" (40:17), is a problem for most of these theories, since it cannot easily be identified with the tail of any animal. Biologist Michael Bright suggests that the reference to the cedar tree actually refers to the brush-like shape of its branches, which resemble the tails of modern elephants and hippopotamuses.^[9]] Some have identified it as the elephant's trunk, but it might instead refer to Behemoth's penis based on another meaning of the Hebrew word "move" which means "extend" and on the second last part of verse 17 describing the sinew around its "stones"—not, as in the translation above, his thighs. The Vulgate, recognising this, uses the word "testiculorum".^[10] A second opinion is that Behemoth is a product of the imagination of the author of Job, a symbol of God's power (and indeed, in verse 24 he is described as having a ring ("snare") through his nose, a sign that he has been tamed by Yahweh).^[1]

 

Whatever the "behemoth" was, the creationists have no ground for asserting that it was definitely a dinosaur, and they completely undermine their own claims about when the dinosaurs died out by using the "dragons" as dinosaurs.

(Now I must hang my head in shame and admit that I used to be one of these young earth creationists. I've heard these arguments many times and never really put them in context like this back when I believed it.)

[owen652]

If behemoth really was a brachiosaurus, i would love to know how Job managed to put a ring through his nose. Did he also ride this brachiosaurus around, possibly as a means of rounding up herds of unicorns?

[LivingLife]

The Behemoth with cedar tail. (courtesy an Aussie lady friend from another forum)

[ConureDelSol]

Isn't the word "Leviathan" in there somewhere too? I was always told leviathans were actually like, plesiosaurs or something. Maybe it depends on the translation.

[Thought2Much]

I've always seen the interpretation for "Leviathan" given as a whale of some sort.

[mcdaddy]

It's been a while since I've looked at it but I read somewhere that leviathan was a mythical monster that one of the gods on the Canaanite pantheon killed. Israel then applied whoever that god was's feat of destroying leviathan to YHWH.

 

At least I think that's right. I could be off though.

[LivingLife]

The problem with Job is that it is NOT a historical story. It is just a story but of course the woos take it as literal. Job did not exist. How can it written as if it was being observed? Sheesh, fiction is fiction.

 

In my deconversion phase I came across a similar non canonised book where Abraham is the star of the show and vastly different to the Abraham story we know.

[mymistake]

New word for YEC Yabadabbadoos

 

"Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyabba-dabba-doooooooo!"

Flintstones... Meet the Flintstones,

They're a modern stoneage family.

From the town of Bedrock,

They're a page right out of history.

Let's ride with the family down the street.

Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet.

When you're with the Flintstones,

have a yabba dabba doo time,

a dabba doo time,

we'll have a gay old time

 

Whoops!

 

Hey that is right! Why is it conservative Christians didn't stop the Flintstone attempt to promote the gay lifestyle?

[mymistake]

Isn't the word "Leviathan" in there somewhere too? I was always told leviathans were actually like, plesiosaurs or something. Maybe it depends on the translation.

 

A fire breathing plesiosaurs!

 

Job 41 KJV

 

¹⁸By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

¹⁹Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

²⁰Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

²¹His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

[Positivist]

The problem with Job is that it is NOT a historical story. It is just a story but of course the woos take it as literal. Job did not exist. How can it written as if it was being observed? Sheesh, fiction is fiction.

LL, I had an epiphany several years back (once I had finally taken my fingers out of my fundy ears). In my job I work a lot with "Native Americans"/Aboriginal peoples/First Nations, and I was listening to an elder speak. Woven throughout her story were mythical elements, like a man running and turning into a dog as he ran. I wanted to roll my eyes at this but was checked because these tales are no different from what I read in the Bible. It made me think:

1. Oral cultures are more concerned with meaning than with fact.

2. The ancient Jewish culture was an oral culture.

3. Might the ancient Jewish people have been more concerned with meaning than with fact?

 

In other words, "Who cares if it's true? It's a great story!"

 

My literalism died that day!

[Ouroboros]

1. Oral cultures are more concerned with meaning than with fact.

That's how the word "myth" should be considered and understood. It's a story that is not historically true, but the story has a meaning to convey. And the meaning can be a truth in itself. For instance, take movies like the Matrix or Fight Club. Are they historical events? No. Are they trying to convey some message that the writers thought to be important or interesting? Yes. Mythological stories work the same way.

 

2. The ancient Jewish culture was an oral culture.

My understanding is that the mythical rewriting of stories to convey certain religious principles were (or still is?) called midrash. (Correct me if I'm wrong, someone)

 

3. Might the ancient Jewish people have been more concerned with meaning than with fact?

I'd say yes and no. I think that in ancient religions, the religious "inventors" (priests, prophets, etc) made the stories to tell meanings and not facts, but the people who received it had a tendency to take it literally. The same happens today.

 

In other words, "Who cares if it's true? It's a great story!"

 

My literalism died that day!

Yup.

 

I love Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Game of Thrones, Foundation, and many other book series, but I know they're not historical true stories. And they are definitely better than the Bible stories.