The Description In Job
Themost detailed description of a dinosaur in the Bible appears in Job40:15-24 . The creaturementioned here, Behemoth, is a huge, herbivorous,four-footed beast with bones as strong as bronze . The obvious clue that this is not a hippo oran elephant is the description of its tail, which hebends…like a cedar tree
. The cedars of the Middle East, such as the famous cedars of Lebanon, were very large trees. Thats hardly an appropriate description forthe tail of a hippo or an elephant. Butit matches perfectly with several different species of sauropod dinosaurs, such as the apatosaurus . Hisgreat height is indicated by the phrase, the mountains lift up food to him
. This implies that he stoodtaller than the trees. And he seems tohave spent much of his time in the water: Under the lotus plants he lies down, in the shelter of the reeds andthe marsh
. His size and power do not match any livingspecies: Will anyone capture him whilehe is on watch will he pierce his nose with snares?
.
When Were Dinosaurs Found
The story of their discovery began back in the 1820s, when Gideon Mantell, an English doctor, found some unusual teeth and bones in a quarry. Dr Mantell realized there was something very different about these animal remains, and believed that he had found an entirely new group of reptiles. By 1841, about nine types of these different reptiles had been uncovered, including two called Megalosaurus and Iguanodon.
At this time, a famous British scientist, Dr Richard Owen, coined the name Dinosauria, meaning terrible lizard, for this is what the huge bones made him think of.
What Is A Dinosaur
Dinosaurs were a diverse group of reptiles, some avian, while others walked on land or were water-dwellers. Some dinosaurs were plant eaters, while others were carnivores. All dinosaurs are believed to have been egg-laying. Although some dinosaurs were gigantic creatures, many were about the size of a chicken or smaller.
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Of The Original Creation
In the Book of Exodus, as God gives His perfect law to Moses on Mount Sinai, He reiterates the plain reading of the Creation Story from Genesis chapter one:
Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
If God created everything in six days, with land animals and humans both coming into existence on the sixth day , then humans and dinosaurs did occupy the same world at the same time. So what happened?
Are Dinosaurs In The Bible Yes
This can be a difficult question for someone who believes the earth is billion of years old and dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. That would mean dinosaurs were long dead before man and the Bible came on the scene. But if you take God’s word for what it says, dinosaurs being land animals were created on day six, the same day mankind was created. Job 40:14 even states this:
Behold now, Behemoth, which I made with you…”
Job 40 goes on to describe behemoth as having a tail like a cedar bones like tubes of bronze and limbs like bars of iron. He is so big and powerful that he is first of the ways of God and so big you can drink up the Jordan river. The only animal that fits this description is a sauropod dinosaur.
So why aren’t dinosaurs called dinosaurs in the Bible? The word “dinosaur” was not invented until 1841. Before that the word “dragon” was used to refer to what we now call dinosaurs. But going further back to ancient Hebrew, the Old Testament uses the word “tanniyn” thirty times. It’s a word that refers to a “monster” of an animal or serpant. A vicious and powerful animal. This word is used 30 times in the Old Testament and was most often translated in the King James as dragon.
God created dinosaurs and mankind on hte same day about 6,000 years ago. Although the Bible is not about dinosaurs, it does mention them. They were a part of people’s lives at the time parts ofthe Bible were written.
To learn more:
THE ANSWER
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Where Are Dinosaurs Mentioned In The Bible
The word dinosauria was first used by a man named Richard Owen in 1842, and originally meant fearfully great lizard or terrible lizard. While they were not called dinosaurs back in Jobs day, the following scriptures found in the Bible certainly could answer our question.
Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar the sinews of its thighs are close-knit. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron. Can anyone capture it by the eyes, or trap it and pierce its nose?
A Fire Breathing Dragon In The Bible?
In addition to the very detailed descriptions in Job, the Hebrew word tanniyn is used in the Bible to describe a number of creatures in the Old Testament. In our current English Bibles this word has been translated as dragon, sea monster, or serpent. Many cultures around the world share legends about dragons. Maybe theyre not just legends after all. Read for yourself what Job had to say.
Jobs Description
Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook, or tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook?
If you lay your hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing it is false the mere sight of it is overpowering. Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth?
Bible Verses About Dinosaurs
What does the Bible say about dinosaurs? Many people ask are there dinosaurs in the Bible? Did they really exist? How did dinosaurs become extinct? What can we learn from them? These are three of several questions that we will be answering in this article today.
Even though the word dinosaur is not used, Scripture does indeed talk about them. The words that we see are behemoth, dragon, Leviathan, and serpent, which can be a number of dinosaurs.
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Were Dinosaurs On Noahs Ark
In Genesis 6:20 we read, Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. If dinosaurs were alive at the time of Noah, we can be assured that they were on the ark. Could the dinosaurs have gone extinct before the flood?
We can calculate from the genealogy from Adam to Noah in Genesis 5, that the earth was approximately 1656 years old at the time of the flood. Thats not a lot of time for mass extinction to take place. The Bible mentions nothing about any cataclysmic events in this period, other than the Fall, when a curse on the land made farming more difficult and caused brambles and thorns to grow.
In recent centuries, hundreds of animal species have been driven to extinction, mainly through over-hunting and loss of habitat. Our world experienced a huge population increase , leading to the development of areas that were once vast wildernesses. However, only certain species became extinct not entire families of animals. For instance, the passenger pigeon is extinct, but not all birds, and not even all pigeons.
5. Genesis 6:20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.
6. Genesis 7:3 And also seven of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, in order to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth.
Did God Create Dinosaurs
Would God have created dinosaurs? Why is there no mention of dinosaurs in the Bible, especially the creation account? In Creation, there are many creatures that were not mentioned by name that do exist. When thinking of dinosaurs, most first thoughts are of gargantuan, ferocious lizards. It makes it hard to believe that God would create something so monstrous for the Garden of Eden.
Actually, the fossil remains indicate that they were indeed a highly diversified group, ranging in size from that of a rabbit to tremendous beasts 20 feet high, 85 feet long, and weighing up to 50 tons. It appears that some were relatively light-footed and had bipedal locomotion, while others were quadrupedal and moved about in a slow and cumbersome manner. Some were carnivores and others herbivores. Certain types were well suited for aquatic habitat while others remained on land. However, most dinosaurs were relatively the size of humans.
Not only that, something to be considered is that humans at the time of Adam up until Noah lived hundreds of years. Adam died at 930 years, Methuselah died at 969, Noah lived 950 years. With such longevity, isn’t it only logical to believe that mankind grew larger and taller? True, it might not be the size of a 20-foot dinosaur, but perhaps proportional to how one experiences the grandiose size of a blue whale compared to the modern average human.
Isaiah 11:6-7 shares this picture of heaven:
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Is There Archeological Evidence For The Existence Of Behemoth And Leviathan
We should keep in mind, paleontologists did not dig up the first dinosaur until 1819. And according to World Wide Fund for Nature, 10,000 species go extinct every year. Researchers still have not uncovered all the creatures that existed in other periods of history, perhaps including ones such as the leviathan.
A lack of archeological evidence does not conclude such animals did not exist.
For instance, 10 archeological finds in 2018 alone bolstered evidence for events and people mentioned in Scripture. But before 2018, those historical events and people still had existed, whether archaeological artifacts proved it or not.
Does it matter?
Yes, and no.
It matters in a sense that we can see Gods fingerprints on all of creation, including the dinosaur fossils we pass in museums. It also matters in the sense that if the animals mentioned in Job are, in fact, dinosaurs, this concludes humans and dinosaurs overlapped in time periods of existence.
However, all in all, whether Job referred to a diplodocus or a hippopotamus, this does not affect major doctrinal issues in the Bible. We should keep in mind Scripture doesnt mention every animal that ever came into existence. This does not mean God didnt have a hand in creating all living things simply because they dont receive a specific remark in the Bible.
Behemoth Moves His Tail Like A Cedar
Job 40:17He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
Now most teachers will stop right here, and say, this is a dinosaur. It certainly sounds like it at first glance. However, God said the tail moveth like a cedar, God did not say it looked like or possessed the size of a cedar, but then how does a cedar tree move?
It does not move, unless the wind blows it. So this is most likely a general description so we can understand this creature possessed a large tail.
The sinews are simply tendons with reference to the creatures thigh region.
Just as Job probably never laid eyes on this animal, he certainly did not see the tendons of this animal while alive. God is simply providing an explanation to Job, possibly over the bones of such a creature.
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Were There Dinosaurs On Noahs Ark
A visit to Kentuckys creationist museum, a conservative base in the culture war
But lets not get ahead of ourselves. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. A short while later, Ken Ham found 40 acres of pastureland in northern Kentucky on which to build a museum devoted to the ideology of Young Earth creationism, which holds that the world is 6,000 years old, and which represents for a subset of evangelical Christians not only the most convincing explanation for how our planet, and the humans who rule it in Gods name, came into being, but also a potent weapon in the struggle against homosexuality and other modern ailments. What I didnt understand until I visited Ken Ham is that his museum, which is devoted to a literal, historical reading of the first book of the Bible, is in itself a forward operating base in the conservative war against legalized abortion, gay marriage, and the belief that man is at least partially responsible for climate change .
Luckily, I belong to a tradition that, in addition to creating the Bible , came to understand, per Maimonides, that the first chapters of Genesis contain stories meant to advance an understanding of universal, ethical monotheism, rather than scientific explanations for creation. A faith that demands uncompromising fealty to a literal reading of its origin story seems to me a perilously brittle faith.
The Creation Museum is not a museum so much as it is a 3-D hellfire sermon with a food court.
Do Dinosaurs Disprove The Bible
Perhaps the most frequent questions asked of me related to the age of the earth are these: What do Christians say about dinosaurs? How do Christians account for dinosaurs and the death we observe in the fossil record? Doesnt the very existence of dinosaurs in the fossil record, contradict the claims of the Bible? Theres an impression, even amongst Christians, dinosaurs present the Christian community with a true dilemma. There seems to be something contradictory about the archeological record of dinosaur life, and the biblical record of creation. This apparent contradiction exists for a number of reasons, and as a community, we need to talk about them so we can move forward to accurately evaluate the natural and special revelation God has given us.
The second issue plaguing Christians as they consider the possibility dinosaurs existed millions of years ago , is the belief the earth is far too young to account for the long dinosaur history indicated in the fossil record. But, as controversial as it sometimes seems, many Christians believe in a very ancient earth , and hold to these beliefs while simultaneously retaining the utmost respect for the authority of Scripture.
Yes, dinosaurs did live and roam the earth. God created them. And yes, dinosaurs did live and die before Adam was ever created. This was also part of Gods good plan as he continued to prepare and shape the planet for the appearance of the crown of His creation, the human race.
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Behemoth Lays Under Shady Trees
Job 40:21He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
Now, this creature had to be large in stature from what we have covered so far, but not so large that he stood above the trees. This verse makes it very clear, this creature can lay down under a shade tree and hide in the reeds and fens which is a swamp.
Have you ever been to a swamp?
They are typically a few inches to six feet in depth. Reeds are certainly not that tall. So for this creature to lay down and be covered by a shady tree and also reeds in the swamp indicates its height cannot be that great.
To provide additional thought, it is interesting to note the words shady trees actually means the lotus tree. Some believe the lotus tree is the Date Plum tree which grows to a height of just 25 feet.
The descriptions we have read are not very fitting of the massive Brontosaurus, as is commonly pictured for us.
Job 40:22The shady trees cover him with their shadow the willows of the brook compass him about.
The shade trees are able to cover this creature with their shadow, and the willows of the brook compass him or cover him up.
The Brontosaurus is estimated to have been over 70 feet long and 30 feet tall excluding his neck. This makes it very unlikely that the Brontosaurus was able to lay down under the shady tree, be covered by reeds in the swamp, and willows of the brook.
Did Job see all of that from where he was standing?
When Did Dinosaurs Live
The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. According to evolutionists, the dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 140 million years, dying out about 65 million years ago. However, scientists do not dig up anything labeled with those ages. They only uncover dead dinosaurs , and their bones do not have labels attached telling how old they are. The idea of millions of years of is just the evolutionists story about the past. No scientist was there to see the dinosaurs live through this supposed dinosaur age. In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that the world and its fossil layers are millions of years old. No scientist observed dinosaurs die. Scientists only find the bones in the here and now, and because many of them are evolutionists, they try to fit the story of the dinosaurs into their view.
Other scientists, called creation scientists, have a different idea about when dinosaurs lived.
Other scientists, called scientists, have a different idea about when dinosaurs lived. They believe they can solve any of the supposed dinosaur mysteries and show how the evidence fits wonderfully with their ideas about the past, beliefs that come from the .
Although the Bible does not tell us exactly how long ago it was that God made the world and its creatures, we can make a good estimate of the date of creation by reading through the Bible and noting some interesting passages:
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