*Claps for Surf's reply*
Ya know Surf man! How does he know?
Dinosaur-like creatures are mentioned in the Bible. The Bible uses ancient names like "behemoth" and "tannin." Behemoth means kingly, gigantic beasts. Tannin is a term which includes dragon-like animals and the great sea creatures such as whales, giant squids, and marine reptiles like the plesiosaurs that may have become extinct.
The Bible's best description of a dinosaur-like animal is recorded in Job chapter 40. "Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. He ranks first among the works of God..."(Job 40:15-19) The book of Job is very old, probably written around 2,000 years before Jesus was born. Here God describes a great king of the land animals like some of the biggest dinosaurs, the Diplodocus and Apatosaurus. It was a gigantic plant-eater with great muscles and very strong bones. The long Diplodocus had leg bones so strong that he could have held three others on his back.
The behemoth were not afraid. They did not need to be; they were huge. Their tails were so long and strong that God compared them to cedars - one of the largest and most spectacular trees of the ancient world.
After all the behemoth had died out, many people forgot them. Dinosaurs were extinct and the fossil skeletons that are in museums today did not begin to be put together until about 150 years ago. Today, some people have mistakenly guessed that the behemoth mentioned in the Bible might be an elephant or a hippopotamus. But those animals certainly do not have tails like the thick, tall trunks of cedar trees! Although it cannot be stated with certainty, it appears that dinosaurs may have actually been mentioned in the Bible. This should not sound so strange. After all, God tells us that He created all the land animals on the 6th day of creation, the same day that he created mankind. Man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. There was never a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth. From the very beginning of creation, God gave man dominion over all that was made, even over the dinosaurs.
Good link
another one
The Biblical book of "Job" also speaks of a fierce creature called:
The Leviathan
In Job 41:1-34" God speaks to Job and says:
"Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook, or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?
If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false, the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him.
Who then is able to stand against me? (this is God speaking to Job ) Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form. Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle? Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together, each so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined first to one another, they cling together and cannot be parted. His snorting throws out flashes of light, his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth, sparks of fire shoot out.
Smoke pours out from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. Strength resides in his neck, dismay goes before him. The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee: slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. Nothing on earth is his equal - a creature without fear. He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud"
The Leviathan was a sea creature with the amazing ability to breathe fire. - This does not sound like any sea creature we have living today. What kind of animal was the leviathan?
Some people have suggested it may be a crocodile.
But we know this is not right. - Have you ever seen a crocodile shoot fire out of his mouth? I didn't think so...
The word that many bibles translate as "snorting" or "neezings" is the Hebrew word: "atish". This means to blow threw the nose.
The physical description of the Leviathan sounds like that of the "ancient" Kronosaur ( a short necked plesiosaur).
But what mystery does this creature hold within its body?
verse 31 mentions "ointment"
Amazingly all ancient ointment was made out of sulfur, one of the very ingredients needed to create a self contained fire.
"His wheezes throw out flashes of light"
Some Scientists believe that a few dinosaurs (like the Kronosaur) had an internal mechanism able to create a self contained spark or fire.
Is the Leviathan a whale?
The Bible tells us that the back of the leviathan:
"has rows of shields"
the word "shields" is sometimes translated scales. Which would exclude whales, which are mammals. The description also mentions Leviathans "limbs" which could indicate large paddle like flippers.
There are other Scientists who believe that some dinosaurs that lived on land like the Hadrosaur parasaurolphus could use a combination of chemicals mixed together to emit a flammable gas.
This sounds absurd, until you stop and think about the fact that even today, several animals are able to do this. Bombardier beetles are able to shoot sparks of fire out of their shells as a defense mechanism. A blast of irritating and odious gas is projected out of the beetles body. This gas is 212 degrees F. Hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide are mixed together causing a small scale explosion. These chemicals are kept from exploding within the beetles own body, by the use of an inhibitor.
Beetles don't understand Chemistry, they only understand survival.
To believe that such a complex mechanism could develop by a chance random process like Evolution is absurd.
If just one part of this chamber developed before the other, then the beetle would blow himself up.
Such complex mechanisms are clearly the careful planning and design of an Intelligent Creator. Who not only designed the world, but foresaw the fall of Man and knew the effect sin would have on the fallen world. This Creator provided a way for species to survive no matter how their environment changed.
The leviathan is not a mythical animal. If a small creature (the bombardier beetle) can emit fire, then why can't a big creature (the kronosaur)?
From the description given in the Bible it is clearly a marine reptile like the Kronosaur.
We often object to ideas that are new to us. But our lack of knowledge of extinct animals, does not limit God's ability to create them with strange defense mechanisms.
The greatest evidence that the Leviathan is a real animal (one that emits combustible chemicals) is the fact that God Himself says it exists.
No other evidence is necessary to the believer.
But, for those who would like some more information, think of the many sea and marine creatures today that do similar things. Electric eels sound like creatures impossible to exist. Yet we are well aware of them.
Many fish even give off electric charges, while others glow in the dark.
Leviathan is not a crocodile, whale, or anything else. I believe from Job chapter 41 alone, that the Leviathan was a dinosaur (dragon).
I was happy to find another scripture in the bible to support my belief.
Psalm 74:13 speaks of Noah’s flood, and the animals that perished in the flood.
"Thou did divide the sea by your strength, you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You broke the head of Leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. you did cleave the fountain and the flood, you dried up mighty rivers."
This verifies that Leviathan was in fact a dinosaur (dragon). Still alive at the time of the flood. Man is unable to kill Leviathan, but many men and animals were destroyed by God in the flood.
The fact that the entire world was covered by water is the best explanation as to why we find plesiosaurs (sea dwelling dinosaurs) fossilized in the middle of the United States.
Plesiosaur and Kronosaur.
The only explanation is that these states were once covered by water. And when they were, dinosaurs were still alive. Their "heads broken" and bodies buried by the rushing sediments of the flood.
The sea dwelling dinosaur Leviathan even lived after the flood. In a time when marine travel was increasing. The next scripture speaks of Leviathan in the days of sailing.
Psalm 104:24 says:
"Oh Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom have you made them all: the earth is full of your riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships, there is that leviathan whom you have made to play there."
Again, not only is leviathan used within the context of reality, but he exists with man. Not alleged ignorant cavemen, but men capable of building ships and other sea worthy vessels.
We are told that Leviathan "was made", it was Created by God. We are even told His purpose in Creating him. "to play" in the seas. This sharp contrast with how Gods original intent and lifestyle of this creature was effected by the entrance of sin and death into the world.
Another Dinosaur possibly able to emit fire is the Hadrosaur. The Hadrosaur is a land animal.
This creature had organs and bladders in its crests. The amazing design of these crests would allow the hadrosaur to create, store and eject flammable chemicals, to protect himself against predators.
There are many different kinds of hadrosaurs.
Here is a picture of the skull of a Hadrosaur Parasaurolophus.
In this cross section of it's the skull you can see the cavities.
It is sometimes hard to know what specific body parts were for, when all we know of a creature is based on its fossilized remains. For instance, if we had never seen a skunk but had found one fossilized, would we ever come to the conclusion that it smelled as awful as it does?
We wouldn't know that fireflies had the ability to cause their back ends to light up.
Or that a worm could re-grow a tail and even a head if cut in half? We would never guess such a thing.
In fact, anyone suggesting that they did so, would be considered foolish.
Yet this is repeatedly seen time and time again.
We wouldn't know that squid expelled ink or blowfish expand the way they do. Neither would we know about the amazing bombardier beetle that shoots fire.. We would pass off this story as a fairy tale. - Except that we have them living today.
The inside chambers of the hadrosaur parasaurolophus skull correlates immensely to the chambers of the bombardier beetle. This is not so unusual. They did after all have the same Creator.
Though it was a creature that Job knew well, I myself have never seen the Leviathan. I cannot say with absolute certainty that it is a Kronosaur.
But I can say for certain that the Leviathan is a dinosaur (dragon).
And the Kronosaur seems to fit this description best.
The eyewitness accounts of this dinosaur passed down generations later, may have been the basis for later "dragon" stories.
The cultures that no longer had a living creature that fit the description of these enormous dinosaurs, would later pass them off as being "mythical".
Some scientist states
"I would remove the bogus statements about kronosaurs, hadrosaurs, and parasaurolophus. You have a poor understanding of physiology and paleontloogy. For what other purposes might those large cavities serve? How many herbivorous fire-breathing animals do you see today? Foolishness."
Creationist Scientist:
I have a good understanding of the anatomy of these creatures which is why I postulate the ability of these creatures to have emited fire. I may be wrong about which creature it was, but the Bible tells us the creature is real, and did in fact exist with man. Science also tells us that this is within the realm of possibility.
It doesn't matter that we dont have any fire breathing animals today. Many animals simply went extinct after the flood. That doesn't mean they never existed. Lots of animals have abilities we do not understand. This shows how complex God's creation is.
Why would God create a fire breathing creature?
Question:
"What purpose would "fire breathing" have served such a grand creature as the leviathan? Was it mere show or could it have been beneficial (other than for protection or for killing, which would only have been needed after the introduction of sin)?"
Answer:
I don't think that Leviathan had the ability to emit fire from the beginning. I think that this occured as part of the Curse that God placed on the earth, and it is one of many harmful deteriorations (such as the sharp teeth in carnivores) which occured along with degeneration and loss of genetic information
[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: PinkHaired Mudokon CWR ]
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