If the Evolutionists are correct, dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, long before man “evolved”. But if the Creationists are correct, humans and dinosaurs have co-existed since Day Six of Creation Week.
Bit of a disparity there. So, which is correct?
If we take it that humans down the ages were far too busy living, loving, fighting and dying to get into excavating ancient fossil bones, and we decide that the Evolutionists are correct, then the first time that humans would have got an inkling into the shape of dinosaurs would have been from the 1840s onwards, when the science of palaeontology (excavating fossilised dinosaur bones and arranging them into skeletons) really got underway. So we wouldn’t expect to find anything remotely dinosaur-shaped that had been produced in human writing or art before, say, 1830.
Unfortunately, that’s not really the case. There are two excellent books on this subject which you really need to get if you’ve got even a remote interest in this area: Dragons Or Dinosaurs: Creation Or Evolution by Darek Isaacs, and Untold Secrets of Planet Earth: Dire Dragons by Vance Nelson. Links given on the Bookshelf.
The first and most important evidence comes from Holy Scripture. The Book of Job is widely believed to be one of the oldest books in the Bible, possibly pre-dating the first five books or Pentateuch ascribed to Moses. If we are to believe Anne Catherine Emmerich, Abraham was a fourth-generation descendent of Job, whilst we know from the Books of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers that Moses was a sixth-generation descendent of Abraham.
In the Book of Job, God Himself speaks to Job in Chapters 38-41. First God begins by talking about the construction of the earth, the sea, how the weather is formed, and the stars. Then He goes on to talk about the creatures of the earth. In Chapter 39 we hear about the mountain goat, the donkey, the ox, the ostrich, the horse, and the hawk. All readily recognisable in the modern world. Then in Chapter 40 we get a creature with no modern name, “Behemoth” (a name directly transcribed from the Hebrew word). Chapter 41 gives us another such creature, “Leviathan”. Many creationists believe these two creatures correspond to dinosaurs that are extinct in our modern world. Behemoth seems to correspond to one of the large plant-eating water-wading dinosaurs like Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus, while Leviathan looks to be carnivorous.
Here is the description of Behemoth from the Book of Job:
“Look at Behemoth,
which I made along with you[1]
and which feeds on grass like an ox[2].
What strength it has in its loins,
what power in the muscles of its belly!
Its tail sways like a cedar[3];
the sinews of its thighs are close-knit.
Its bones are tubes of bronze,
its limbs like rods of iron.
It ranks first among the works of God,
yet its Maker can approach it with his sword.
The hills bring it their produce,
and all the wild animals play nearby.
Under the lotus plants it lies,
hidden among the reeds in the marsh[4].
The lotuses conceal it in their shadow;
the poplars by the stream surround it.
A raging river does not alarm it;
it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth.
Can anyone capture it by the eyes,
or trap it and pierce its nose? (Jb 40:15-24)
The second creature, Leviathan, gets a much longer description with some intriguing details (my emphasis):
“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?
Will it keep begging you for mercy?
Will it speak to you with gentle words?
Will it make an agreement with you
for you to take it as your slave for life?
Can you make a pet of it like a bird
or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?
Will traders barter for it?
Will they divide it up among the merchants?
Can you fill its hide with harpoons
or its head with fishing spears?
If you lay a 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.
No one is fierce enough to rouse it.
Who then is able to stand against me?
Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.
“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,
its strength and its graceful form.
Who can strip off its outer coat?
Who can penetrate its double coat of armor?
Who dares open the doors of its mouth,
ringed about with fearsome teeth?
Its back has rows of shields
tightly sealed together;
each is so close to the next
that no air can pass between.
They are joined fast to one another;
they cling together and cannot be parted.
Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
its eyes are like the rays of dawn.
Flames stream from its mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.
Smoke pours from its nostrils
as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.
Its breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from its mouth.
Strength resides in its neck;
dismay goes before it.
The folds of its flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable.
Its chest is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone.
When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before its thrashing.
The sword that reaches it has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
Iron it treats like straw
and bronze like rotten wood.
Arrows do not make it flee;
slingstones are like chaff to it.
A club seems to it but a piece of straw;
it laughs at the rattling of the lance.
Its undersides are jagged potsherds,
leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
It leaves a glistening wake behind it;
one would think the deep had white hair.
Nothing on earth is its equal—
a creature without fear.
It looks down on all that are haughty;
it is king over all that are proud.” (Jb 41:1-34)
Here we see direct evidence suggesting that dinosaurs like Leviathan were fire-breathers. The fossil record is silent on such matters, since the intricate chemical-processing structures in the head required to deliver fire are no longer possible to identify from fossil remains. But obviously we know from widespread folk legend that dragons (which, err, resemble dinosaurs visually) breathed fire. And so the dots begin to join up.
There is some further corroborative evidence in the Book of Wisdom, one of the Apocryphal Books of the Bible. This passage is commenting on how God chose to react to the unfaithfulness of the apostate Israelites after they had been led into the desert after the Exodus (my emphasis again):
In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts,
which led them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals,
you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them,
so that they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which one sins.
For your all-powerful hand,
which created the world out of formless matter,
did not lack the means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or bold lions,
or newly-created unknown beasts full of rage,
or such as breathe out fiery breath,
or belch forth a thick pall of smoke,
or flash terrible sparks from their eyes;
not only could the harm they did destroy people,
but the mere sight of them could kill by fright.
Even apart from these, people could fall at a single breath
when pursued by justice
and scattered by the breath of your power.
But you have arranged all things by measure and number and weight. (Ws 11:15-20, NRSVCE)
These words seem to confirm what we read about Leviathan in Job. And some of the words we first read there (“its eyes are like the rays of dawn”) seem to have an echo in “flash terrible sparks from their eyes”. Did dinosaurs have the ability to shoot fire from their eyes as well as their mouth?
I am only aware of one other Biblical testimony for human/dragon interaction, and again it lies in the Apocrypha. In Catholic Bibles, the Book of Daniel has some extra elements not seen in Protestant editions. One addition is the song of the young men in the fiery furnace, which extends Chapter 3 from 33 to 100 verses. There are also two additional chapters, 13 and 14, at the end of the book. Chapter 14 contains two stories about dragons, the first being man-made and “operated” secretly by the Babylonian priests under cover of darkness. However, the second was definitely a real living creature:
Now in that place there was a great dragon, which the Babylonians revered. The king said to Daniel, “You cannot deny that this is a living god; so worship him.” Daniel said, “I worship the Lord my God, for he is the living God. But give me permission, O king, and I will kill the dragon without sword or club.” The king said, “I give you permission.”
Then Daniel took pitch, fat, and hair, and boiled them together and made cakes, which he fed to the dragon. The dragon ate them, and burst open. Then Daniel said, “See what you have been worshiping!” (Dn 14:23-27, NRSVCE)
This little exploit got Daniel thrown into the lions’ den…
In the next post, we’ll take a look at some of the extra-Biblical evidence for humans having walked with dinosaurs. And if you can’t wait until then, here are some links to the articles I’ve found most fascinating on this topic within the vast archive at Creation Ministries International:
https://creation.com/dragons-animals-not-apparitions
https://creation.com/were-dragons-real-in-medieval-times
https://creation.com/angkor-saw-a-stegosaur
https://creation.com/bishop-bells-brass-behemoths
https://creation.com/australias-aborigines-did-they-see-dinosaurs
[1] On Day 6 of Creation Week.
[2] Sauropod dinosaurs are known to have been herbivorous.
[3] Powerful tails are a hallmark of sauropod dinosaurs like Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus.
[4] Sauropod dinosaurs are widely believed to have been water waders – the upthrust from the water would have helped offset their enormous weight.
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