In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia examines the topics of dinosaurs and dragons from a biblical perspective. Pastor Dave first overviews the topic of dinosaurs and then examines the descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan from book of Job to argue that, unlike what is commonly believed today, dinosaurs were created just as Genesis 1 says and lived alongside humans for centuries.
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So good morning and welcome to Sunday school. We are continuing in our creation foundation study. Last time we spoke about the expanded account of creation from Genesis 2 and we find so many foundational doctrines there. We just broached them last time. A right understanding of man, anthropology, a right understanding of gender, of sexuality, of marriage, of work. They all begin in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
And these accounts do not fit with an evolutionary understanding of origins or of these topics. But rather than adjusting the Bible to fit man’s modern theories, we have to reject or adjust man’s theories to fit with the Bible. So the Bible’s a thing that doesn’t change.
We have to alter our perspective about other things. That’s because the Bible is trustworthy. The Bible is God’s word and therefore it must be our foundation for understanding the world. Now, what are we talking about today? Well, before we get to that, let me muse for a little bit. God’s creation is truly amazing.
The accounts of Genesis 1 and 2 are they are a vivid display of God’s power, God’s absolute command over everything in the universe. And what he’s created is quite evidently beautiful. It’s awesome and it is diverse. Take the cardinal for instance. Relatively common bird.
Actually seen a bunch of them lately.
But if you take the time to look at one closely, you see that they are works of art. They got the vibrant red and black feathers, that kind of neon orange beak.
These cardinal birds, they move swiftly, gracefully through the sky. They point us to the beauty and creativity of God.
Or take the lion.
When you think of the lion, what adjectives come to mind.
Little louder.
Mighty, majestic is the king. All right. Thinking of connections to Jesus. Yes. So powerful, stately, regal, majestic.
The lion has strong muscles, impressive speed, and a deadly bite and a terrifying roar.
We regard this creature as not only beautiful, but awesome, even a little bit fear inspiring. And it reminds us of the awesome power and majesty of God and even our need to fear him.
But as impressive as these creatures are in their own ways, probably no creature shows forth the awesomeness of God as creator like the space slug.
This gigantic creature so enormous it could swallow a spaceship in one bite and with a slap of its tail shake the ground for miles. Yet it is mysterious only found in deep space. What a testimony to the power, the creativity, and the mystery of God.
What’s that you say? The space slug is not a real creature. It’s actually a madeup creature from the movie Star Wars. Oh, well, I beg your pardon.
I guess it would be silly to praise God’s wisdom, creativity, and power by speaking about a madeup creature, wouldn’t it?
It would be silly, too, for someone in detail, but to inaccurately describe a real creature and then use that as a basis to praise God or teach about God, wouldn’t it?
However, this is precisely what some suggest the Bible itself does in the book of Job. Near the end of that book, we read descriptions of two creatures that to many today seem plainly mythical or at least extremely exaggerated, hyperbolic.
What creatures am I talking about? I’m talking about the creatures Behemoth and Leviathan.
What exactly were these creatures? Were they real? Were they myth? Are they creatures that still exist in our world today? Or were they creatures that we don’t know or see today? Creatures from the past, even dinosaurs?
And if they were dinosaurs, what are the implications of that for our understanding of origins?
Dinosaurs and dragons is our topic today. And I realize that this lesson technically focuses on passages that are not in Genesis 1 and 2, but the passages we’re going to look at are going to provide important clarifying information for what we do read in Genesis 1 and 2.
Here’s our lesson agenda. We’re going to overview this topic of dinosaurs. We’re going to examine two passages in Job, the ones I mentioned that may have a connection to dinosaurs, and then we’re going to watch a video clip from Answers in Genesis that’s going to tie up some of the main points of today’s lesson.
Let’s pray before we go on.
Lord, you are amazing at all the creatures that you’ve made, even Lord, the dinosaurs. And you have some things to say regarding dinosaurs, even in your own word. So God, help us to pay attention. Help us to understand. and help me to be able to explain and help us to appreciate not only the apologetic implications but also the theological implications about what this says about you. Jesus name. Amen.
Let’s first talk in general about dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs really did once live on the earth. Since the early 1800s, people have found fossil evidence of dinosaurs.
The name dinosaur itself it comes around coined a term that comes from Greek roots meaning terrible lizard. That’s what dinosaur means from Greek. Now there are many modern scientific theories related to dinosaurs that are contradictory to scripture that are anti-biblical but dinosaurs themselves are not. Don’t feel like if you admit the existence of dinosaurs you’re somehow compromising the Bible. That’s not true. As Christians, we should not be afraid to admit that dinosaurs once existed. In fact, we should give glory to God. We should stand in awe of him for how he made dinosaurs and other great creatures that no longer exist today.
But dinosaurs need to be rightly understood from the perspective of biblical truth.
Truly, our culture is fascinated with dinosaurs. You can think of various movies, video games, books that all feature dinosaurs and kids especially seem to be attracted to dinosaurs that you could see it on their clothing even.
Why is it that modern culture is fascinated with dinosaurs? What do you think?
They are big. Yes. This has got to be one of the primary reasons you and I often gape at things that are oversized. Giant buildings, giant machines, giant sandwiches.
So, understandably, we are amazed at giant creatures.
I mean, there are some decently big animals around today, and they have our respect. But many dinosaurs were apparently much bigger. From what paleontologists conjecture about dinosaur size based on discovered dinosaur bones, the largest of the dinosaurs were the soropods.
Soraods. These are herbivores with extremely long necks and tails. The largest of the soraods, or rather the longest of the sorapods, was 115 ft long, which is longer than the largest the longest creature we have today, the blue whale, which is about 100 ft long. The longosaurod was 115 feet long. And the heaviest soraod appears to be the brachiosaurus at around 27 tons or 54,000 lbs. And for reference, the average adult elephant is about 5 1/2 tons or 11,000 lb. So think about something that’s five times heavier than an elephant and you have one of the soraods.
But not all dinosaurs were extremely large. The hipsophodon, for instance, was about 6 feet long and only one and a half ft tall, crouched against the ground, about 125 lbs.
So much smaller than the soraods, but other dinosaurs were even smaller.
Answers in Genesis often reminds people that the average size of a dinosaur is actually the size of a sheep.
And of course, there is an asterisk to this to these numbers that I’m giving you because scientists are constantly estimating and then revising their estimates about how big how heavy different dinosaurs were. But surely this is part of the reason why we are fascinated by dinosaurs because there were some really big ones and they capture our imaginations. That’s not the only reason why I think we are fascinated with dinosaurs. Why else?
Yeah, Magda.
That’s right. They no longer exist.
They’ve all apparently disappeared.
They are from a time before our time now. They’ve been lost to us.
They are then a mystery.
Many scientists have devoted their lives to uncovering the mystery that is dinosaurs.
When did these creatures live? What were they like? What happened to them?
And since they appear to be ancient creatures, dinosaurs invariably get caught up in the conversation about origins. According to secular scientists today, dinosaurs were some of the most ancient creatures that existed on Earth.
If we go back to Genesis 1 and the sixth day creation account, on what day did dinosaurs appear?
Land dinosaurs would appear on the sixth day because that’s when land animals were created.
And what about the others?
Any sea or air dinosaurs would have appeared on which day?
On the fifth day because they were created before the land animals. So we have day five marine dinosaurs and perhaps air dinosaurs and then land dinosaurs on day six.
Which means for land dinosaurs at least they were created on what same day as another important creature or what other important creature were they created on the same day as mankind.
land animals, dinosaurs, humans all created on the same day. So to summarize, according to a plain reading of Genesis 1, all land creatures, dinosaurs, and humans were created at the same time.
But if you suggest as much to an evolutionist today, he will probably laugh at you. He says, “We know, we know that humans came much, much later than dinosaurs. Dinosaurs appeared about 231 million years ago.” and died out about 66 million years ago.
The first humans didn’t evolve from apes until about 2.3 million years ago. This is clear from the fossil record. There is no way that humans live together with dinosaurs.
Probably hear something like this from many scientists today.
But hopefully by now we know enough to reject this kind of evolutionary timeline just based on the reliable record of Genesis 1.
But is there anything else in the Bible that we could turn to that suggests or proves that humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs?
And indeed there is. That’s why I want to look at with you today at the book of Job. So if you would take your Bibles and turn to the book of Job, chapter 40.
Job, chapter 40. If you’re using the pew Bible, it’s page 549.
Job 40. We’re going to read verses 15 to 24. So actually it’ll be the next page, page 550. Job 40 15 to 24. But before I read that, let me give you a little bit of context.
You remember the book of Job? The man Job, righteous Job, after suffering calamity after calamity in his life for no good reason that he can see, he expresses to his friends that he wishes he could talk to God and ask God why all this tragedy has come upon Job.
And he increasingly becomes convinced that his suffering is unjustified.
And so he wants to defend himself before God and even ask God for an explanation.
In chapter 38, Job very unexpectedly gets his wish. God appears to talk with Job. But rather than explaining to Job what God is doing, God gives Job a series of rebukes in the forms of questions. And through these questions, God reminds Job of God’s great power, God’s great wisdom, God’s right to do exactly as God wishes without explaining himself to anyone.
In short, God is humbling Job in this part of the book of Job. At the end of the book of Job, he’s humbling Job and putting Job back into his rightful place of dependent trust.
I’m the great God. I know what I’m doing. I don’t have to explain it to you. Just trust me.
Now, if you’ll glance for a moment at chapter 39.
In this chapter, God asked Job a series of questions about different animals.
We won’t discuss all those questions. We don’t have time. But if you scan the passage, you’ll notice a number of animals mentioned that we know. Mountain goats, verse one. deer, verse one. Wild donkeys, verse 5, wild oxes, verse 9, ostriches, or some kind of bird, verse 13, the horse, verse 19, locust, verse 20, the hawk, verse 26, the eagle, verse 27.
These are all real creatures, are they not?
And the descriptions given of them are accurate. They do describe what these animals actually are like, how they behave. If they did not, then God’s words would make no sense.
God asked Job about all these different creatures. He says, ‘ Do you know about these?
Do you completely understand? Are you in control of all these? Do you cause them to do what they do?
And then if we look at chapter 40, the beginning of the chapter, God commands Job to give an answer to everything he said so far. Job doesn’t really have much of an answer. And then God resumes his interrogation of Job starting in verse 15.
That’s what I want to read with you now.
So Job 40 15 to 24.
Behold now behemoth which I made as well as you. He eats grass like an ox. Behold now his strength is in his loins and his power in the muscles of his belly. He bends his tail like a cedar. The sineu of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze. His limbs are like bars of iron. He is the first of the ways of God. Let his maker bring near his sword.
Surely the mountains bring him food, and all the beasts of the field play there.
Under the lotus plants he lies down, and the covert of the reeds in the marsh.
The lotus plants cover him with shade.
The willows of the brook surround him.
If a ri river rages, he is not alarmed.
He is confident though the Jordan rushes to his mouth. Can anyone capture him when he is on watch with barbs? Can anyone pierce his nose?
All right, as is our practice, let’s start our investigation by just making simple observations of this text.
Notice what genre of literature is this?
It is part of something that did take place historically, but you’ll notice it’s not written like narrative we’ve seen before.
Our Bibles have actually set these lines apart in a special way because what kind of genre is this? This is poetry. In fact, you’ll recognize certain aspects of Hebrew poetry, namely the parallelism. you’ll have certain things repeated in a slightly different way, in a parallel way or in a contrasting way.
This is poetry, Hebrew poetry. Now, to get back to the comment before about history, does poetry mean that something is non-factual?
Not necessarily. True things can still be said in poetry. In fact, we see this all the time in the Bible. And the Bible’s not going to get something wrong if it’s claiming that something is true.
The Bible is inherent though with poetry we should expect more figurative language than usual more simileies more metaphors. Now this passage is about a creature that God calls behemoth. And that name is interesting. It sounds like the collective Hebrew noun that is normally translated cattle or animals or beasts. We actually see that word in Genesis 1. The word is behemma.
It’s a singular word, but it’s a collective word. Usually translated cattle. But here we have behem mo. The o ending is normally the feminine plural in Hebrew. Don’t worry about the feminine thing. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s female. It’s just a grammatical thing. But this is a plural ending. And you actually see this in other words that you read in the Bible like the ashtar.
That’s female um depictions of a deity.
Or the lord of saboth.
Uh that would be sabah off means hosts or armies. So these are plural words.
They have that feminine plural ending.
So we have a word with a feminine plural ending here. But this is not a plural set of creatures we’re talking about.
It’s just one. This is clearly a singular creature being described here.
So perhaps that plural ending is what’s called a plural of majesty. Hebrew can sometimes emphasize the greatness of something by something that is singular by giving it a plural ending. And actually you see this in a word you have heard many many times. What is one of the Hebrew names for God? Elohim which is actually the plural of the noun l which is means ga a god or powerful one. Elohim would could be translated gods but it’s often used in the bible to refer to the one true god. It is a plural of majesty. Now he is the masculine plural ending. O is the feminine plural ending. But you have the same concept there. This plural of majesty is used by the Hebrews. And there may be something going on with this creature here. Is this creature then particularly great even the greatest of the creatures that are animals, beasts or cattle?
Now notice from our passage, what does behemoth eat?
Eats grass. He eats plants. What sense do we get of the creature’s size?
He’s pretty big. He’s a huge creature.
And what are some descriptions from the passage that emphasize the creature’s size?
Okay, we’ll talk more about his strength specifically, but can you point to some phrases?
His tails like a cedar. What else?
Can anyone capture him? Uh, Chris, you’re saying something?
Bones.
Yeah. Tubes of bronze or it’s like bones are big metal tubes. What else?
Yeah. Nothing can uh stop him, confront him, capture him. Says he’s the first of the ways of God. That that could be translated chief. The mountains bring him food, which is to say he eats a lot.
A whole mountain is needed. If a river rages, he’s not alarmed. He’s confident.
Though the Jordan rushes to his mouth, this guy just plows through the river.
He the lotus plants cover him with shade. The willow brooks surround him.
Now, quick note there. The phrase lotus plants, it’s actually translated pretty differently depending on your Bible translation. New American Standard Legacy Standard Bibles say lotus plants.
ESV says lotus trees. NIV says lotuses.
King James says shady trees. This is a rare Hebrew word. probably means something more on the tree side. The lotus plant that we know today is essentially just a flowering lily pad and that’s not going to cover very much.
Uh unless you’ve got a whole lot of them and you’re completely underwater.
This is probably something more treelike.
And actually we see this from the Hebrew parallelism of verse 22 because it says he’s covered by these lotus plants but also the willow trees give him shade.
Those are trees. Those are much bigger than a a lily pad. So bottom line there in that description, many plants and trees are involved in giving this one creature shade.
Now we noted that how’s the creature’s tail described?
Like a cedar. Say more about that in just a second. So he’s big, but also he’s strong. What are some descriptions here that emphasize his strength?
Some of them we kind of mentioned already, right? So again, the the bones being described as tubes of bronze or iron.
What else? Yeah, Ian.
Right. So he can go against the whole river rushing towards him and he’s not phased by it. So that not only points to his size but also his strength.
There are the questions about can anyone capture him and those are rhetorical questions. No.
And there’s a the line about the strength in his loins. Verse 16. The strength is in his loins and his power is in the muscles of his belly.
Now most of the location descriptions here they describe what kind of environment for this creature.
Yeah. some sort of wet plantfilled environment. So like a marsh or a swamp or a land with rivers and trees. And who is the only one who can approach this creature with the sword successfully?
No man. But the text does say someone can let his maker. It says in verse 19, “Let his maker bring near his sword.” The only one who can cow this creature is the one who made him who is God.
Now with those brief observations, let’s now ask some interpretation questions of this passage.
What is the point of this passage? This is not merely to give us a description of an interesting creature. This is told for a purpose. What’s the purpose?
answer what this is definitely directed at Job and it does has to do with what Job wants to find out. Remember Job wants an explanation for hey God why’d you do all this to me but why does God mention this behemoth creature to Job right this is a further demonstrations of God’s power Job I take of all care of all these creatures you don’t that’s chapter 39 oh by the way there’s one particular creature who’s particularly amazing which nobody can handle I can handle him so Job do you see the difference between me and you.
God wants Job to understand the limit of Job’s power and understanding understanding compared to God’s unlimited power and understanding. Job needs to see his smallalness and God’s bigness. And God is using behemoth to do that.
But what exactly is behemoth? What is the behemoth? Certainly, this animal is big. It’s strong. And it’s familiar to Job. Else there’d be no point in God bringing it up. But can we be more specific?
The two animals most commonly identified as the behemoth by biblical interpreters including many Bible study the study Bibles and commentaries are the elephant and the hippo. In fact, if you are using the pew Bible, you will see a little note actually where behemoth is introduced. It says behemoth or the hippopotamus.
Actually, I think Sultan you could testify to this. the the Russian word beggy mottz actually is the word for hipp hippopotamus.
So it’s been interpreted that way for pretty long time. And certainly the elephant and the hippo are large and strong creatures who live in the kind of environment that behemoth is said to live in these watery marsh type areas.
But there’s a certain part of the passage that really doesn’t fit with those two animals. And what is that? The tail. bends his tail like a cedar. Tail is obviously a big problem because well those trees on the side of the slide there, I don’t know how well you can see those, but those are cedar trees. And a lot of times when the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, it’s talking about cedar trees. It’s talking about something that is big and strong.
So if you have the strength of a cedar or if your troops are called cedar trees, then it’s like, man, we’re strong. And this animal has a tail like a cedar, says the writer.
But let’s look at the tale of the elephant, the hippo.
Are either of these evocative of the great and mighty cedar trees that would have been familiar to Job? Certainly not.
Now, someone might say, well, maybe tail here is supposed to describe an elephant’s trunk and not his tail. It’s kind of like a tail in the front.
Well, interesting thought, but there’s no linguistic evidence in or outside the Bible that the that suggests the Hebrew ever used the word for tail to mean something other than tail.
Someone else might say, well, maybe when God described the tail being like a cedar, he meant the branches, not the trunk of a cedar tree. You know, it’s a you could say it’s a little like a branch, right, for an elephant or a hippo.
Well, first of all, many cedar tree branches are actually quite thick. But second of all, how would it fit the purpose of God here to draw attention to the behemoth’s small stick-like or twig-like tail?
I mean, the whole p point of the passage, as we pointed out, is that no one can control the behemoth except God because the behemoth is so big and powerful. I mean, look at his tail.
Why would God in the middle of this presentation of this creature’s power point to the not very big and not very strong tail if indeed it is so small?
that would seem to go against God’s purpose.
So, because of their tiny tails, neither the elephant nor the hippo could be the behemoth.
It must be a different creature, then.
So, what other animal do we know actually existed that had a tail big and strong like a cedar tree that fits the other details of this passage?
Well, a soropod dinosaur.
And here’s a picture of a sorapod with its tail.
Yeah, that’s cedarlike.
Now, consider the implications of this conclusion.
Job then is an example of a human living at the same time as a giant creature that no longer exists today. A creature that from what we can gather from the fossil evidence today and the description of this passage is a sorpod dinosaur.
And by the way, Job most likely lived around 2100 2,000 BC.
So contrary to the claims of many evolutionists today, humans did live alongside ancient giant creatures, even dinosaurs.
Behemoth is proof of that. Yet Behemoth is not alone because look at chapter 41.
God uses a another giant creature to reinforce Job’s smallalness and God’s bigness. And this is a sea creature known as Leviathan, which comes from the Hebrew Lethon.
And we can’t read the whole description of Leviathan in the next passage, but we’re going to highlight a few things.
Just kind of scanning through. Look at Job 41, first two verses. God asked Job, “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook or press down his tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?” What’s God emphasizing to Job?
What’s Oh yeah, the answer is no. You definitely can’t do that, Job. Job cannot capture or subdue this creature.
Skip down to verses 8 to10.
418-10. Lay your hands on him. Remember the battle. You will not do it again.
Behold, your expectation is false. Will you be laid low even at the sight of him? No one is so fierce that he dares to arouse him. Who then is he that can stand before me?
Remember, this is God speaking. So what’s God emphasizing to Job?
That God’s majesty, God’s power. If Leviathan is a fierce creature that no one can overcome, yet God made him, then God is even more powerful, less overcomeable than Leviathan.
And there’s something unique about Leviathan. Other than his strength and ferocity, though, there’s definitely descriptions of that in the passage. But if you jump down to verses 18 to 22, look at what is said about Leviathan here. Job 41:18 to22.
His sneezes flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning torches, sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils, smoke goes forth as from a boiling pot, and burning rushes.
His breath kindles coals, and a flame goes forth from his mouth. In his neck, uh, I want to go Yeah. In his neck lodges strength, and dismay leaps before him.
According to these verses, what strange ability does the Leviathan appear to have?
He can breathe fire.
Before someone says, “Oh, that’s just figurative.
He can’t really breathe fire. This is just a description of his ferocity.” Well, look at how much emphasis is put on the animals heat and flames in this passage. There are eight to 10 lines, different ways of talking about coals and fire and smoke. This description is too detailed, too elongated, too emphatic to just be a metaphor for fearsomeness, ferocity.
Other parts of this passage describe how Leviathan is particularly wellarmored.
Its skin cannot be penetrated by darts and arrows.
emphasize how large it is, how powerful it is, that it stirs up the sea whenever it’s just moving along.
This is a clearly massive creature that once struck fear into the hearts of men who otherwise feared nothing.
And certainly this creature seems to fear nothing.
But what creature is like this today?
Some interpreters have suggested that this animal might be a crocodile or a great white shark.
But again, these present day creatures, they don’t really fit with Job’s description. There’s no particular well armor for a or strong armor of a shark.
It’s ferocious to be sure and large and but it’s not boiling the water as it goes.
Crocodiles got armor, but again, the other descriptions don’t fit.
Leviathan must be a giant fireb breathing sea creature that is unknown to us today.
Some kind of scaly sea dragon or sea dinosaur.
Maybe something like that picture there.
Don’t know exactly what Leviathan looked like or what Leviathan was, but Job knew this creature. Job apparently lived at the same time as this creature. So God can talk about Job interacting with it as if that were a possibility.
That’s why God mentions it to Job.
And interestingly, this is not the only place in the Bible that Leviathan is mentioned. Three other times we see Leviathan. In Psalm 104:26, Psalm 104:26 mentions how God, as part of his creation, he made Leviathan to play in the sea while human ships go passing by. That’s Psalm 104. Psalm 74.
In Psalm 74 13-4, Asaf recounts how God in a display of his unmatched power at one time destroyed various sea monsters, including Leviathan, and gave them up as food to various wilderness creatures.
And then Isaiah 27:1, Isaiah 27:1 refers to Leviathan as a serpent or even a sea dragon. And it is used metaphorically in that passage for the mighty enemy of Israel that God will one day slay.
Now, Leviathan’s appearance in these other passages is significant because that means Leviathan was not only known to Job, but it was known to others in the Bible.
and their statements about Leviathan, they fit with the elongated description of this creature in Job 41.
So, what does all this mean? The Bible gives us very good reason to assert that humans and dinosaurs and other ancient creatures that don’t technically qualify as dinosaurs, but basically dinosaurs, they lived in the same world at the same time.
Now, it doesn’t mean, however, that humans were regularly hanging out with dinosaurs. Like, they were all buddy buddy.
After the fall, or at least after the flood, dinosaurs probably acted towards humans like many other animals do, even big animals, with hostility or with fear.
But of course, the great question is, if dinosaurs lived at the same time as some of the humans of the Bible, what happened to them? Why don’t we see dinosaurs today?
The Bible doesn’t give us the answer to that question.
However, we’re going to watch a video now that will shed some light on that question and also tie up many of the ideas that I’ve been presenting. So, clip is about 11 minutes. Let’s see what answers in Genesis has to say in regard to this question. Uh when you’re ready, go ahead and play the video.
Here in England, there’s a popular legend.
Just outside an ancient city lived a fireb breathing dragon. In order to pacify the dragon and satisfy its hunger, every day the people of the city gave the monster two sheep. When the sheep failed to satisfy the dragon, human sacrifices were required.
Lots were drawn to determine the victim.
And one day, the lot fell to the daughter of the king himself.
The king offered all his wealth to purchase a substitute to no avail. And so the young maiden, dressed as a bride, was led away to the marsh where the dragon lived.
There was a soldier, a follower of Christ named George, who happened by and saw the condemned girl. When the dragon attacked, George outfought the mighty beast.
[Music] He then asked the maiden for her guarder and bound it around the scaly neck of the dragon. After which the princess was able to lead it like a lamb. They went into the city. The grateful king offered the soldier up to half his kingdom. But the man refused. He simply asked the people to consider the Christian faith.
The people rejoiced and were baptized.
That’s the legend of St. George, the patron saint of England and the dragon.
A myth surely, an allegory filled with symbolism. But in the center of that myth is this strange creature. Where did such a creature come from?
Well, dragon legends are found in many cultures and traditions all around the world.
[Music] Dragons abound in Chinese children’s stories, Babylonian legends, and Aztec tales. In Japan, dragons are generally considered friendly creatures. Children read stories of great dragon keepers and heroic dragon riders. Medieval European legends feature dragons who lived in wild remote regions guarding great treasures. Images of dragons are preserved on family crests and national shields.
But what could have inspired all these stories?
Is the dragon simply the creation of inventive minds? Or could dragon stories be based in reality, possibly related to dinosaurs or other amazing reptiles that we find in the fossil record.
[Music] Many scientists contend that dinosaurs died off over 60 million years before humans came to be. The possibility that humans and dinosaurs ever coexisted is unthinkable to them. But what does the Bible say? Genesis 1 tells us that God made the animals of the land, air, and sea in the same week that he created human beings. In this case, humans would have been alive on the earth at the same time as these creatures. Dinosaur fossils believed to be laid down during Noah’s flood suggest that dinosaurs were certainly alive at the time of Noah.
only a few thousand years ago. And since the Bible tells us that Noah took pairs of every kind of land animal on board the ark, he certainly brought dinosaurs with him as well. This is consistent with recent discoveries of soft tissue and red blood vessels preserved in dinosaur fossils. A find that suggests dinosaur bones are not nearly as old as many scientists assume.
[Music] One of Noah’s descendants is Job. And in the book of Job, we find two mighty creatures, probably the largest animal on land and the fiercest animal at sea.
Behold now, behemoth, God says to Job, as recorded in chapter 40, which I made along with you. He eats grass like an ox. His strength is in his loins, and his power is in the muscles of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar.
Some Bible footnotes suggest that this may be a reference to an elephant or hippopotamus. But ask yourself, does the tail of an elephant or hippo look anything like a swaying cedar tree? Look instead at this depiction of a sorapod dinosaur. Doesn’t this resemble the behemoth described in Job?
[Music] There’s one possible place where the Bible describes a dinosaur and it would be the behemoth described by God to Job in the book of Job.
[Music] And God’s talking to Job about a specific animal. And he goes into a great amount of detail to describe this animal. In fact, it’s one of the most detailed descriptions of an animal in the entire Bible.
He’s got a description there, several verses describing his attributes, his characters.
When you compare those descriptions with living organisms, it doesn’t fit. But it does fit the description of a sorapod dinosaur. the Bronosaurus type dinosaur, the Apatosaurus dinosaur.
It’s big. Everything about it is enormous and strong. And as you read that, you can picture in your mind immediately one of the great soraod dinosaurs.
I suspect that the animal described in Job chapter 40 called Behemoth is in fact a dinosaur that lived in the days of Job.
The book of Job not only describes a behemoth, it also tells of another creature. This one called a Leviathan.
The the animal given the name Leviathan is described as a sea creature, fastm moving, covered with scales, uh apparently can come out of the water to interact with humans at the surface of the water, has teeth, terrible roundabout and so on. And most amazingly, it’s described as breathing fire.
Out of his mouth go burning lamps and sparks of fire leap out.
Out of his nostrils goeth smoke as out of a sthing pot or cauldron.
His breath kindleth coals and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
There’s a lot of mystery with Oviathan.
It’s a most extraordinary creature.
[Music] So, if dinosaurs lived alongside humans, and Noah even brought pairs of young dinosaurs with him on the ark, what happened to them? Where did they all go?
[Music] When I find fossils of dinosaurs in the record, I also find with them other organisms, including certain kinds of plants. I suspect those are the plants dinosaurs actually ate. If that’s the case, then dinosaurs ate a different type of plant than we find commonly today. They ate a gymnospermis type of plant that is uncommon in the present.
So the dinosaurs had food but it was limited and so I suspect the numbers of dinosaurs were kept to a very small number following the flood. I suspect there were few dinosaurs about making it possible and this is what I believe happened to them ultimately for humans to pick them off to kill them. Perhaps humans killed predatory dinosaurs because they were afraid of them or because they wanted to show off.
[Music] When you start with a biblical perspective, the text and other evidence suggests that dinosaurs and other incredible reptiles of the sea and air once lived alongside people at the time of creation, during the flood, and for centuries thereafter. So, it is hardly surprising that the world would be filled with legends of heroes like St.
George and their encounters with mighty beasts.
[Music] [Music] [Music] You can uh you can stop the video. All right. Thank you.
So, if we indeed start with the Bible, just like the man was saying on the video, we stick with what it presents to us about the great land and sea creatures, then the presence of legends about dragons, which is really just a pre-1850s word for what people would call dinosaurs today. That should not surprise us at all.
And neither should the rock drawings or other ancient human-made artifacts that depict dragon-like creatures. This is because humans and dragons, humans and dinosaurs, they did live in the same world at the same time because all of the creatures were created on the fifth the fifth and sixth days of creation.
And let me bring up two objections before we get to any other questions.
Some might say, “Well, couldn’t the behemoth and the Leviathan just be made up? Mythical creatures that were legendary at the time of Job? He’d heard about it and so God co-opted that legend to illustrate God’s power.
Could that be?
Why not?
Okay, we could say that the myths across various cultures are not consistent. So maybe what God says of Job is not not something that Job was familiar with. I think there was a hand over here. Uh, Emma, okay, it would be allegorizing the text, but maybe the text calls for that.
Uh, Magda, okay. Yeah, there’s a very important point from context. He was just talking about real creatures in the previous chapter. Why would he suddenly talk about mythical creatures? Ian, you’re going to say something else.
a lot less meaningful for sure. Yeah, exactly. If God is just talking about a mythical creature that doesn’t actually exist, then the whole point of the passage is sundered. Look how great I am that I created this creature that I didn’t actually create and isn’t actually like this. What would that mean to Job? What would that be significant for him? How would that humble Job? He’d be like, “But but wait, you didn’t actually make that. That’s just legendary.
It would make no sense. It would be ridiculous. The passage means nothing if the creature is not real.
And even if only part of what the creature describes is unreal. Oh, you know, God exaggerated a little bit. Then again, it contradicts the purpose of God because Job could be like, “Wait, that’s not actually what that creature is like.” And then you could even argue it makes God deceptive because he says that’s what that creature is like when it’s not.
So, no, these can’t be mythical, highly exaggerated, madeup creatures. These have to be real, even though it’s written in poetry.
Second question, though, is well, if humans lived alongside dinosaurs like you claim, and as the Bible seems to suggest, well, how come we don’t see any examples of this in the fossil record?
We do not see human bones alongside dinosaur bones. So, what do you say to that?
Well, there’s actually a great and thorough response to this question from Answers in Genesis on their website.
There’s an article called Why Don’t We Find Human and Dinosaur Fossils Together? Why don’t we find human and dinosaur fossils together? You can check that out for a nice thorough answer. But right now, I’m just going to say two points in response to that. First, let’s remember fundamentally if the Bible says something that we don’t find evidence for in the world doesn’t actually matter that much because the Bible is trustworthy. Romans 3:4, “May God be found true, though every man be found a liar.” Our faith in the authority of God’s word is never dependent on finding corroborating evidence in other sources of the world.
God’s word alone is trustworthy.
That’s what it means to believe in the word of God, to have a biblical perspective, a biblical worldview. You start with the scriptures. You assess everything by that. So even if there’s no extra evidence to corroborate the Bible, you say, “That’s okay. I can still believe the Bible.” But secondly, it does not follow that finding rather that not finding fossils together means that those two types of creatures don’t live together. that is that is a a cause and effect that doesn’t actually exist or does not necessarily exist. There are many reasons potentially why we might might not find two creatures buried together that actually lived at the same time.
And one example that’s mentioned in the answers and Genesis article that I uh just talked about a second ago is the colacanth.
Kolacanth was once thought to be an ancient fish that had become extinct millions of years ago. Fossils of this fish were found below and at the same layer as dinosaur bones, but never higher, which certainly mean that this fish lived at the same time as dinosaurs. But since no fossils of this fish were ever found with humans, it was assumed that the fish had gone extinct long before humans had evolved.
However, in 1938, a strange thing happened. A population of living colacan fish were found in the Indian Ocean and they continue to exist today right alongside humans.
Moral of the story, just because you don’t find bones of two different organisms together doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t live at the same time.
As one man well said about archaeology and paleontology in general, absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.
Really, it’s an argument from silence and those are always very weak.
Well, let me leave you with a few other questions before we end today.
God used behemoth and Leviathan to make a point to Job. But we need to make sure that we’ve understood that same point. I focus a lot on the apologetic side of dinosaurs and dragons today. But let’s not forget what God’s point was to Job.
Consider your own concept of God.
Is your God the God of the Bible?
Is he as big as the God of the Bible is?
Is he big enough to uphold you through trials?
Is he big enough to keep all his promises to you?
Is your God big enough that he doesn’t need to explain himself to you or bend to your way of thinking or arranging the world in your life?
How big do you make yourself out to be in comparison to God? I don’t mean phys, you know, literally physically. I mean, essentially, how do you compare to God in your own perspective?
Does God need to remind you about the dinosaurs and dragons that he really made and that he’s the only one who could really confront and control, including Behemoth and Leviathan?
God made. He could easily subdue these creatures.
How could we ever stand pridefully before our maker and the maker of these great beasts?
Another question to consider is, have you been proactive in teaching your kids about dinosaurs from a biblical perspective?
Kids love dinosaurs. All sorts of cartoon shows and even documentaries about dinosaurs. But if you’re not diligent to talk about dinosaurs from a biblical perspective with kids, well, they’re going to learn it from somewhere else and it’s going to contradict the biblical perspective without your permission. They’re going to tell them all about millions of years and evolution and dinosaurs and all that.
So, there’s a need to be proactive about this.
But, you know, dinosaurs can even be used as a way to explain the gospel.
How might that be?
Everybody loves dinosaurs, great creatures. They’re gone now. How could that actually tie into the gospel?
Okay. Yeah. So, Glenn, I think you said some good things there. Remember who we’re talking about. Basically, I think we can emphasize the same point to other people as was emphasized to Job.
You don’t want to exalt yourself before God because he’s the he’s the creator of all. Even of the big creatures that don’t exist anymore. You are to humble yourself before the before the Lord and then he will exalt you. Come to him in faith and repentance. You mentioned the idea that we can believe God’s word.
Say, hey, you know, everybody says these different things about dinosaurs, but we actually have a more trustworthy source that not only tells us about dinosaurs, but tells us about our need for salvation in Jesus Christ. But I think with dinosaurs, too, we can really connect it to the fall and the need for redemption in general. What happened to the dinosaurs? Well, they they died off.
Well, why we want these great creatures around today? Well, that is the effect of sin on the world. That was the this is the outcome of the fall and Noah’s flood and the way that humans have had to interact with dinosaurs since this whole universe is in has been corrupted and in need of redemption. And you know what? That’s true of you and me. you know, whoever you’re talking to, because the judgments that existed in the past, well, that’s just a prelude to the judgment, the ultimate judgment that is coming in the future. And it won’t just be the loss of significant creatures at that time, but the damning of human souls. We need to get right with God. You need to get right with God, whoever it is you’re talking to.
So, there’s always many ways to tie into the gospel, but even dinosaurs, even dinosaurs can be used in that way.
All right. Well, that’s all for this week. Next week, we’re going to talk more about the fossil record as we consider another issue, large issue, and that is the age of the earth. There are plenty of Christians who will be strong and deny evolution, but still be open to the idea that the earth is billions or millions of years old.
Is such a position consistent with the Bible? Does the Bible have anything to say specifically about the age of the earth?
We’ll talk about that next time. Let’s close in prayer.
Holy God, great God, powerful God, you really did create dinosaurs and they existed on the earth and Job knew about them. Job probably saw a behemoth.
What a mighty creature. What a terrifying creature. We would get scared, God, if we saw a lion in the wilderness or if we saw a crocodile or something like that. But imagine a behemoth or Leviathan. Lord, these creatures would terrify us.
And yet you made them. And you can make them do whatever you want. And you can destroy them or you could tame them. Nothing is too hard for you.
And yet we are so easily reduced to fear and weakness. That’s a reminder, God, of our need to humble ourselves before you. You are God and we are not.
You are the creator and sustainer. We are dependent on you. So God, I pray that we would learn the lesson that you were teaching Job and that we would be in awe of you even because of the dinosaurs and dragons that you’ve created. Pray God that we would trust you, trust your word, and not be afraid to go against the flow in our society when it comes to this topic because your word is trustworthy and you are a great God. In Jesus name, amen.
